


No Planes in the Sky

by Fly09Fire



Category: Original Work
Genre: Action, Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Adventure, Adventure & Romance, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Angst, Angst and Drama, Angst and Feels, Angst and Humor, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Civil War, Comfort/Angst, Drama, Drama & Romance, Dysfunctional Relationships, Dystopia, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Heroine's Journey, M/M, Multi, Other, Post-Apocalypse, Psychological Drama, Rebellion, Science Fiction, Teen Angst, Teen Romance, Teenage Drama, Teenage Rebellion, Teenagers, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2020-09-19 08:51:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 82,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20328424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fly09Fire/pseuds/Fly09Fire
Summary: A country ripped apart by disease. One bite is all it takes to sucumb into a ravaging Feral. There is only one hope for a cure, and she's doing her best to make it.PAIGE EMRY: A Princess. A Fighter. The Cure.But Militias are climbing the ladder of chaos, and refuse to fall back to the bottom rung of an organised world.ATTICUS GRACE: A Prisoner. A Killer. The Rebel King.Captives pioneer the way towards salvation, eaking out lives of torture, moment to moment between a white room and cages.C-002: A Captive. An Animal. The Experiment.And there are those who do anything to keep going, stepping on the back of anyone to get a foothold out.CEDRIC HOLDEN: A Liar. A Coward. The Survivor.





	1. Prologue

The ground was no place to sleep. If it was, then it wouldn’t have been called bed, bath and beyond, as in, beyond the freaking ground. It was why cave men slept on furs, the Japanese on pallets, pirates swung from hammocks – The invention of beds for god’s sake.

  
Cedric Holden’s cot in the Sandbox had a broken corner that jacked up his neck when he slept. Each night, behind those walls, he could feel the lice of inmates gone by crawling over his skin, sucking the blood from his pores, laying eggs across his body, the thought alone causing shivers from the memory of spindly phantom mandibles scrit-scratching hotly across his skin. His food rations, bleak at the beginning of his sentence, were cut back to the rotten scraps the Guards probably picked through with their dirty, fat fingers and tossed into a prisoner slop-bucket. They pressed him to a cell with four others that should have held two at the max. How he wished those bars could shrink down to encompass only his miniscule cot, just to have that little bit of space to himself, even if they locked it up and threw the key into the desert.

  
Cedric Holden missed that cot.

  
Everything the prison could throw at him still beat the rocks digging into his back and the chill wind sweeping across the clearing the group settled in for the night. Everything else he’d escaped. Except the worst torture of all: other people.

  
He rolled over for the fifth time. Now the rocks dug into his left shoulder, and the light of the full moon shone in his eyes.

  
Stupid Roja, he thought as he rolled over again. He couldn’t settle.

  
The rest of the prison escapees were sleeping, the lot of them having dropped like flies as soon as they’d laid down. Lucky bastards. They’d been walking all day, barely slowing enough to rest. Cal wouldn’t let them stop longer than a few minutes, enough time for everyone to catch their breath, get a swig of water, before pushing them on their endless march.

  
Most of them were as happy as Cedric with the arrangement, not that they were balls enough to say it like he did. He was sure they wondered as much as him how far they’d fallen, getting handed from one Roja to another in their miserably short lives.

  
President William Roja, the conquer of the apocalypse, their shining saviour, sent children to prison.

  
If any kid under eighteen broke his rules, Roja shipped them to a correctional Facility in the Colorado desert. There was a name to the place but Cedric couldn't be bothered to remember it. QZ brats, himself included, called it the Sandbox.

  
A brilliant idea forged by his escape partner, who left him to be caught by the Guard, got Cedric’s ass shipped west. The same escape partner strutting over the sleeping bodies pretending to give a shit about their safety after breaking them out of a maximum security prison. If he’d known their plan was going to end up in this shit storm he would’ve let the Guard shoot him and be done with it. Years of keeping his head down, of hiding, gone to piss, all of it for nothing.

  
The Sandbox was hot, the other prisoners were angry and the guards didn’t give a crap if they all killed each other.

  
It should’ve been hell.

  
Only... there was a bed in the Sandbox. Regular meals. His own space. Walls keeping the monsters on the outside. If the only downside was an itchy collar, over one hundred kids invading that space, and being slapped with a conscription sentence when the inmate turned eighteen, Cedric could, and would, have stayed down to the last second. He’d spent years trying to avoid a fate of being sold into the Military, but what a man would do for his own bed.

  
Then the prison walls fell one cool night in the middle of spring. When the prisoners of the Sandbox ventured outside, clutching whatever bed post or guard stick they’d stolen that could suffice as a weapon, it occurred to them all simultaneously; none of them knew what to do next. Some wanted to go back to their Quarantine Zones. Others wanted to go it alone, only to quickly remember that would be suicide.

  
It really shouldn’t have been a surprise when Cal Roja, son of the William Roja, appeared through the smoke and rubble, every bit the champion of the freaking world, and took charge of the hundred plus inmates suddenly on the loose. Cedric hadn’t counted how many of them there were, that was Cal’s job now. As far as he was concerned the less to make noise and attract attention, the better.

  
The mass of Patriot soldiers at Cal’s back, however – that was a surprise.

  
Like an ESP to Cedric’s bitter thoughts, Cal emerged from the blackness. Shoulders hunched against the chill of the night air like he’d risen up out of the murky depths, akin to some un-dead creature – which would have been funny if Cedric didn’t hate irony so much. One of the few working torches they owned flickered on, slicing through the dark, glaring into Cedric’s eyes.

  
“Sorry.” Cal didn’t sound sorry to Cedric. He’d been doing a round of the group since they’d stopped for the night. He could have gotten one of his Patriot’s to do it. Cedric hated him even more because he didn’t. “You don’t want to sleep closer to the others?”

  
“And be gassed by their sleep farts? Pass.” Cedric leaned further back into the knobbly backing of his tree, arms folding across his stomach.

  
“You’ll be warmer.” Cal shrugged, offering an amiable smile.

  
“Your concern is touching,” Cedric sneered up at him.

  
A twitch rippled up the side of Cal’s nose, the only slip of his suppressed glare. “Look,” he began with all the suffocating fake apology of the schoolyard bully getting caught taking lunch money by the principle. “I regret what happened, I’ve told you that a thousand times-“

  
“Once. Right now,” Cedric bit at him.

  
“-but you’re the one who-”

  
“Shouldn’t the mini-president be getting his beauty sleep?” Cedric cut off. He tried to get comfortable again, pulling his jacket tighter around his shoulders as he turned away from Cal.

  
Cal grit his teeth, then blew the frustration away. “Grow up, Cedric,” was all he bothered with before he continued on his rounds. Clicking the torch off, he waded between the groups to try and conserve its battery, moving by the silvery light of the moon.

  
Cedric kept his sneer trained on Cal’s back until he could no longer see him, huffing as he sat up. Shuffling until he felt the bite of bark press into his back, maybe he’d sleep better like that. He didn’t really believe it, but the only other option was a thousand count Egyptian pebble thread ground.

  
“He really doesn’t respect you.”

  
Cedric stiffened.

  
That voice, cold air on the back of his neck, the twisting warp of atmosphere before a storm, slithered past his ear, settling like ice in his blood. He looked around, having forgotten that he’d purposefully positioned himself away from the others. For this very reason.

  
“Cedric,” the voice sing-songed. “I’m talking to you.”

  
“You’re not. You can’t,” Cedric hissed, turning his glare to the floor. He used to do that as a child, so stupid. If I can’t see you, you can’t see me. “You’re not real.”

  
Cedric let his head lift as spirit fingers he knew weren’t there tilted his chin back up. He met dazzling blue eyes that looked like Cal’s, but knew that to anyone watching he was staring intently into the blackness.

  
“How long are you going to keep trying to convince yourself of that?” the Cal that was not Cal snickered, squatting down in front of Cedric on thighs that would never feel the strain, even if he stayed there all night. “Honestly, you’ve been trying to convince yourself I’m not real for... how long now?”

  
The initial shock of Head Cal’s arrival wore off, as was annoyingly becoming the custom. Cedric glowered at him, muttering as he slouched back against the tree, “Couple months.”  
Head Cal arched a ghostly blonde eyebrow. “Oh, Cedric, you know it’s been longer than that.” He shook his head, supernatural eyes glinting with amusement. “At least you’re starting to accept this.”

  
“You’re nothing... My imagination.”

  
“Keep telling yourself that. Oh wait, you are,” Head Cal cackled. Cedric looked around to make sure no one heard him, forgetting, as he always did when he feared he was going insane, that no one could. Laughter erupted from Head Cal again at his nervousness. “Stop scowling or your face will get stuck that way.”

  
Cedric didn’t, glaring into the darkness where the real Cal could be overhearing everything.

  
Head Cal followed his gaze, nothing looking into nothing. “You think if you glare hard enough he’ll disappear and take me with him?”

  
Cedric refused to indulge him.

  
The dark look on Cedric’s face entertained Head Cal, his slithery voice torturing out a thick chuckle. “You really don’t like him, do you?” Looking at the shapes huddled around where Cal told them to rest, he carried on as if Cedric offered answer. “I mean, sure it’s understandable. For you to hate him, not for anyone else. Those kids listen to the little Roja. They admire him. They like him.”

  
“I don’t care who they like.” Cedric could barley keep from spitting the words out defensively, eyes shifting away.

  
“Exactly.” Head Cal’s teeth gleamed through a feline smile. The nerve was found, he wouldn’t stop prodding it now. “You don’t want them to like you, yet you hate that they like Cal. Green is an ugly colour on you, Cedric. Black suits you much better.”

  
He wasn’t jealous. He wasn’t, and wouldn’t ever, be jealous of a Roja. It just pissed him off that all the others were buying into another Roja’s phony crap. Like the president cared about them? Like his full-of-shit son wanted to look out for them? Their dynasty practically signed their death certificates. And when they woke up and found guns pointed in their faces with the Roja’s standing over them, Cedric would enjoy saying he told them so until they cut out his tongue.

  
“I’m not jealous.”

  
“Are you sure?” Head Cal’s sarcasm was so heavy he could have been mistaken for sincere. “He freed them from the Sandbox. With Patriot’s. Our harsh and mighty President’s son defying everything his father stands for? Breaking out the future soldiers his father put away, so they can join his enemies Militias? That boy couldn’t be more of a teen rebellion icon unless he died that Bieber cut blue and ripped every last shred of his jeans down to the crotch.” Head Cal laughed to himself. “Want to bet he’s a mommy’s boy?”

  
“You’re sick.” Cedric shifted uncomfortably at what that could mean for his own mind. “They’re stupid. Didn’t know a good thing when they had it. Now we’re hungry and sleeping on rocks.”

  
“And free,” Head Cal added offhandedly.

  
“Shut up,” Cedric muttered.

  
“I’m in your head. If you want me quiet all you have to do is stop thinking about me,” Head Cal said. His ethereal thighs should be screaming from how long he’d held that squat. They weren’t even shaking.

  
“You don’t believe that,” Cedric said, Head Cal’s smirk proving his theory. “If it were that easy then you’d have been gone a long time ago. You never would’ve appeared in the first place.”

  
“You don’t believe that.”

  
“Don’t tell me what I know!”

  
Cedric froze, looking around. He could make out a darkened shape shift, roll over. A groggy moan sounded from one of the many kids piled on top of each other to keep warm. When he was sure no one heard him, he settled back against the tree.

  
“That was close,” Head Cal mused, never taking those mocking eyes off Cedric to check around.

  
“I hate you,” Cedric muttered as he glared at Head Cal’s shoulder.

  
“Then you hate yourself,” Head Cal pointed out. Cocking his legs out in front of him and leaning back on his hands, unperturbed by the rocks digging into his ghostly palms, looking a lot more comfortable than Cedric huddled against the tree. “I mean, I would too if I were you.”

  
“Shut up,” Cedric muttered without much heat.

  
Head Cal tittered, shaking his head. “Is that really any way to speak to someone?”

  
“Shut up!” Cedric kicked out, his foot passing through Head Cal’s stomach without so much as a ripple.

  
Head Cal watched the leg passing through him as Cedric pulled it back. His blue eyes, dark and shaded under his brow, seemed to glow as he stared at Cedric with cold sincerity. “That’s no way to behave, Cedric.” Voice dark, matching his eyes. “You really should act your age.”

  
Cedric shivered. He knew the thing glaring at him was nothing but an apparition of his mind, but it possessed ways of tearing through his senses and gripping him with an icy hand, squeezing with words born of Cedric’s own mind until he couldn’t breathe. It couldn’t hurt him though. He hoped.

  
“I did nothing wrong.” The accusation stung like a wasp barb. “The only reason I’m here is because of you – him.”

  
“Now that’s definitely not true,” Head Cal said with mock hurt, abandoning his menace for an insulted look, raising a hand to his chest. He was a theatrical bastard. “You can’t be talking about the dashingly handsome young man sacrificing his sleep so you can all rest easier?”

  
“You share looks and your shitty personalities,” Cedric muttered.

  
“Now, you’re just being rude.”

  
“His father put me in the Sandbox, and his offspring brought the Patriot’s to it, not me. If he hadn’t, neither of us would be here right now.”

  
“Well, if you’re going to bring technicalities into this, all of us wouldn’t be here right now if it wasn’t for you.”

  
Cedric bristled. His fingers, pink from the chill, went white as he gripped tight at his jacket. If he pulled tight enough could the fabric lock him forever in a sarcophagus of cloth? Or wrap too tight and crush him. Whichever came first. He’d told himself over and over. Kept repeating it until the impulse to comfort himself no longer existed. Only his mantra; If it hadn’t been me, it would have been someone else. If it hadn’t been me, it would have been someone else. Some kids used lullabies to put them to sleep. Cedric used his mantra.

  
“Cedric?”

  
His head snapped up, hand ready to shield from the glare of the torchlight as Cal wandered over again. He couldn’t have made another round already.

  
“I heard you talking.” Cal looked around, noticing how aggressively alone Cedric set out. Whoops, overcorrected. Now, as the Mini-President’s eyebrows pulled together, trying to put into place what Cedric must have been doing, Cedric regretted not placing himself closer to one of those idiots to at least appear like he wasn’t crazy. “Are you okay?”

  
“I’m fine.” Cedric snarled up at the torchlight.

  
Concentrating became a battle; talking to one Cal while the other stared at him expectantly, the smallest movement drawing his eye in flinching pinball jerks. Like Head Cal was waiting for him to slip up, nudging it along with head tilt here, a twitch of the finger there. Cedric’s eyes burned from the effort of keeping his gaze on the real Cal, ignoring Head Cal as the phantom leaned closer, rested fake elbows on his fake knees.

  
“He’s right, Cedric. You look a little pale.” Leaning closer, Head Cal watched Cedric’s face with bogus concern. “Did you catch something?” Cedric forced himself not to look at Head Cal as he spoke. It helped to not see the smirk that bloomed across the imaginings lips as he leaned back again, shifting his attention to his solid counterpart. Real Cal never saw any of this, even as the apparition looked up at him, like the boy might know he was there, like he was going to hear what he was about to say. “He’s all yours, big guy.”

  
“Cedric?”

  
Cedric blinked. Head Cal was gone, the space he’d been sitting empty, the rocks undisturbed. In the space was Cal, holding out one of the canteens to him.

  
“I know this is hard." Cedric was sure without a doubt Cal didn't know the meaning of hard. "The Sandbox was easier, but it was a cage.” Uncapping the lid, he proffered the canteen to Cedric, a peace offering. “You should drink some water. You don’t look so goo-”

  
“I’m fine!” Cedric snapped, lashing out.

  
Jumping back while juggling the lid back over the nozzle, Cal caught the canteen before the whole bottle could tumble out of his hands. He missed a few drops, which landed at Cedric’s feet, staining the ground a darker shade of brown.

  
He glared at Cedric. “What’s your problem?”

  
How much time do you have? Cedric thought in a voice sounding a lot like Head Cal’s.

  
Cal was already walking away, not bothering with another one of Cedric’s tantrums, and Cedric was just glad to finally... maybe, be alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who see’s this update and has already read the fic, how did you find the edition of this prologue? It was originally the kick off to the fic but I wanted to test how it would be received without it first to see if it was needed or not. 
> 
> Thank you


	2. Chapter One

The door jerked open and Paige knew she was racing towards the end.

  
Her eyes stung from pale light streaming through the door. She braced for the rush of horror, the coil of dread to sink through her stomach down into the seat below. Yet, as the burn faded, and the guard continued standing in the doorway, she felt no fear dragging her down but the fight starting to rise.

  
Two days ago a youth detention convoy departed from the Quarantine Zone encompassing Washington, D.C. stuffed to the lug nuts with fresh offenders for Colorado. Most Sandbox prisoners came from the biggest Military run boarding school in the country. President Roja’s grip was tightest on the eastern states; New York, Philadelphia, Maine, D.C. Further the settlement west, the more likely the Quarantine Zone fell victim to shortage of resources, overrunning, or the Patriot’s; Despite Sandbox turnover, there was never enough soldiers to hold them all securely. California and Texas were still under control. The last report was over four months ago.

  
But from the moment they set off Paige couldn’t shake a nagging in the deepest pit of her gut, that she would never make it to her destination.

  
No one in the convoy talked, but for Paige there was no such thing as silence. Voices called to her – every day back in D.C., those corners of her room at the boarding school. Wails echoed from the seats of the humvee she was sitting in, the spaces between her thoughts. Screams from the deepest recesses of her mind begged for her help. It wasn’t death she craved. No, she had too much to do before that. But, once this was all over, if it was the only way to silence the voices, then, and only then, was she prepared to die.

  
Her handcuffs clinked as she made to unbuckle the seatbelt. Aside from the machine hum, it was the first sound she'd heard for hours. Movement jerked in the corner of her vision, freezing when the guard held up his hand. Paige couldn't see his eyes, face masked by the Military issued headgear. Jutting out from beneath the goggles pointed a sharp tan chin, lips pulled down into a scowl.

  
“Checkpoint.” He slammed the door, circled the hood, and climbed into the Humvee, grunting as he settled into the passenger seat.

  
“All still there?” the driver muttered, mocking enough to receive no answer from his newest passenger.

  
Cheeks flushing as she followed example, Paige retook her seat, letting her hands fall back into her lap with a final disruptive clink.

  
One of her three companions, a girl with bags of bruised exhaustion under her wicked eyes, snickered in the way all nasty girls fake being nice. “Sorry, sweetie, we’re not at the noose yet.”

  
In his seat opposite her a boy snorted, recycled clothes hanging off a body deprived of rations. “Can you really be surprised she wants out?” Bound hands jingled, both needing to lift to tap a finger against the metal collar around his neck. “This chafes.”

  
“You’d take the Sandbox over a little bondage?” Mean amusement lighted the girl’s otherwise empty eyes.

  
“I’m a free spirit. Probably why Roja decided to lock me up. Feel like sharing a cell?” A slow and deliberate wink capped off the boy’s emaciated run at the girl.

  
Tuning them out proved impossible with only three inches of space between the seats. Besides, wasting their last moments of freedom flirting with no chance of it leading anywhere wasn’t the worst thing to be subjected to. It was actually kind of nostalgic, in a tormented watching old videos of your dead dog kind of way, never getting to live those wonderful memories with the same friend ever again.

  
Paige pushed back into the seat, stretching out her neck until she felt the pop eluding her for the last hour where her shoulders met. Curling around her own neck, metal bit into the sensitive skin with each roll of head and shoulders. Free Spirit diagonally across from her was right, the collars chafed, and hers itched under her left ear no matter how far she tried to jam her little finger down there. Rumours back in D.C. shifted, circled and changed, the gist being the prisoners were forced to wear tracking collars that recorded their vital signs once arrested. Believing it gave in to the masses lunacy, until hers was clamped around her neck and she was loaded onto the convoy.

  
Her silence meant nothing to the others. They’d gotten used to being ignored when they tried to talk about their arrests during the first day. Let them believe her self-righteous, or, more likely, already knew her as Roja’s favourite, so it required very little effort on her part. An easy trend to set since she wasn’t the only one being quiet.

  
A fourth occupied the final seat in the convoy.

  
Confined to the back of the Humvee, the guards hoped the solitary and darkness would warp their prisoner’s perception. They didn’t think Paige would be counting the hours, watching the slim shadows through her fogged slit of a window, and Adam had spent their journey in silence. His eyes shifted from side to side, and he possessed a twitchy habit of dragging his thumb across the back of his hand, pressing it into the skin at the middle until a white print was left behind. This carried on, his thumb digging deeper the longer the checkpoint inspection dragged out. It took him looking up, meeting her eyes then quickly shifting his gaze away and over his shoulder, for her to realize he was concentrating on listening to the guards.

  
“Recruiting young.” Based on the unfamiliar gruff baritone, the new Guard was unimpressed with their cargo. He spared the delinquents a glance through the glass partition behind the two front seats.

  
“Prison transport,” the driver snipped in a nasally voice geared towards complaining about the jobs he drew from his rotation as much as he did about the weather. “Four new ones for the corral. Fuckin’ kids, don’t know how good they have it in the Quarantine Zones.”  
“I thought I was on a weapons transfer,” the new Guard said instead of agreeing with him. “Where’s the bus?”

  
Overcrowding, students turned soldiers, students turned criminals, soldiers being deployed to the latest Quarantine Zone in danger or overrunning or Patriot hole-up. All reasons for transports to be moving in and out of D.C. on a too regular basis. Not often, though, did they get shipped in anything other than a guarded bus, let alone armoured humvees.

  
“Did you not see who’s on board?” The driver’s laugh halted and hitched through his narrow honker.

  
New Guard looked back over the prisoners. Goggle obscured eyes lingered on Paige. “That one doesn’t look like a criminal. What’s her deal?”

  
Interesting. Not a native to D.C. perhaps?

  
“D.C.’s having more trouble than handling their little revolters,” the driver sniggered without much humour. “She tried to escape, and just about anything will get them a place these days. President. Roja says they can still be ‘reformed’ but he’s dumping the problem on somebody else.” Paige could pick out disgust tingeing the driver’s mean voice.

  
“World goes to shit and we end up taking orders from a hypocritical tree hugger,” new Guard replied, a little cautiously and a lot grudgingly, not wanting to offend the driver but believing his truth.

  
Not that he need worry, the driver laughing again before letting out a despairing groan. “Not like he had much of a choice. All eighteen cabinet members before him were wiped out.”  
“So we resort to swearing in the Secretary of Environmental Protection, who was once a polluting business man?”

  
The driver grunted, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “It’s the animals going bat-shit. I’m surprised he hasn’t made them special pens so he can pet ‘em.” He’d been tapping his fingers against the wheel but stopped after a moment’s thought, looking at the new Guard. “He was never guilty of pollution. Can you pollute when your business is making and marketing pills?”

  
“He was a business man before he was a president,” new Guard said in a low, already decided growl. “Business men only ever deal with poison, they just stick a different label on it.”

  
“Ha, you got problems, rook. Anyway, anyone’s gonna be better than Trump’s term.” The new Guard offered another grunt as he sunk lower into his seat, though it sounded more agreeable. No choice really. “Anyway, she’s-” Driver jerked his chin at the back seat through the rear view. “supposed to be the daughter to one of the higher-ups. Important enough for Roja to personally bring her into the City Centre after the first year.”

  
New Guard snorted and shook his head, another for Paige’s collection.

  
“You laugh, but don’t get too close. One guard got his nose broke trying to get her on the convoy.”

  
Interest rippled through the new Guard’s deeper swivel towards the kids in the back, arm bracing along the line of his and Drivers seats. Pushing his goggles up, he revealed freckled cheeks beneath two copper penny eyes, darker than they had any right to be. Paige watched him take in blonde curls sure to give him doubts on whether she was actually guts enough to break a soldier’s nose. His eyes settled on her chest, lingering. An indignant flush bloomed through her neck. Upon glancing down, she realised her father’s dog tags were peeking out from her shirt. The steel Craig Emry bounced against her chest, dipping lower from the weighted mangling dent across the y with each breath.

  
Without turning back around, New Guard asked the favourite question of D.C. “She the Emry girl?”

  
Adam hunched deeper into himself, giving Paige a better vantage to match the new Guards intense gaze.

  
Abandoning the challenge, New Guard turned to face forwards. “Even Princesses can’t get away with shit anymore.” He looked to Driver. “I was scheduled to be on a Weapons Transfer.”

  
“Tough shit,” Driver grunted. “She tried to sneak out, macho man behind you punched a cafeteria Guard, no idea where he got the balls from, and now we’re wasting an armoured car and six days of our lives on four little shits. They change rotations last minute all the time.”

  
Communication was always kept in top condition, prioritised with weaponry, recruitment, and readiness to action. Cavemen used smoke signals. Frontline troops in World War Two used trained pigeons. Kids in intense battles of capture the flag held tighter to carnival prize walkie-talkies than the allowance they used to get them.

  
Communication.

  
Her father always told it that way, so a miscarriage of information this large didn’t sit right with Paige. But Driver didn’t seem bothered by it. The Guard were famously lazy compared to the Military in the field. Members of the Guard chose to stay in the QZ’s, policing the people under Roja and the A.C.R.D’s rules. They liked the control and power. They didn’t like the danger.

  
Through the window a pair of masked soldiers finished with their inspection and waved the convoy on. “Finally,” said Driver, shifting the truck into first. “Take a good look at those woods, you won’t see none of that in the desert.”

  
Paige did take a look, out the dirty sliver of side window. Smudges dominated the glass, but bursts of green and brown couldn’t be totally obscured by mud splattered poly-glass. Anything resembling a tree she left years ago to Louisiana, the tiniest squiggle through the murk firing a rush of home straight through to her bones. D.C. was strict on civilian control, especially for minors. Any child not accounted for by family was taken into the Military’s boarding schools, trained into soldiers, then filed into the depleting troops. Feeling bark, smelling fresh, heavy, Louisiana air, were fading memories, slowly forfeiting to grating concrete and synthetic glass. Sharp edges and dank concrete of the grey city hilariously thought to match the humid damp of her home.

  
Once the glimpses into the green she’d missed were gone there would only be the penetrating heat of the Sandbox to remind her of home.

  
Official destination on the file read Colorado State Penitentiary for Juvenile Delinquents, but Sandbox became the adopted term of the students, and since they were the ones forced under the blistering, unending sun and miles upon miles of Colorado sand, they saw it as their right to decide the name. Minors who broke the rules of the Military Boarding Schools were sent there without chance for a case, and drafted straight into the Military once they turned eighteen.

  
“Did you see that?” The girl’s muffled whisper faded against the other window, oily skin smudging the glass as she stared intently at the world outside.

  
“I can’t see shit. You got a window seat,” the boy opposite her grumbled.

  
“Shut up,” Paige hissed, pressing her face closer to her own window. Quick, hot breaths steamed the glass as she searched for whatever the girl spotted.

  
“She speaks, and it’s to tell me what to do! What’s wrong with me talking?”

  
Paige’s breath came too quick for her to answer. The short space between her face and the window made her head feel light. Or maybe the dark shape she’d glimpsed darting through the trees caused her heart to jackhammer in her chest. Possibly the blur of the window as they trundled past, but she couldn’t take that chance.

  
“Switch seats with me,” she said to Adam.

  
“No.” The new guards head perked up at Adam’s short sullen answer, looking over his shoulder at them.

  
“Switch seats with me.” She was already on her feet.

  
“What’s going on back there?” Driver snapped, halting the car to look back.

  
“No! Keep driving!” Pushing past Adam, her shoulder thudded against the partition.

  
“Sit down!” Driver circled on her, missing something fast and huge dart out ahead of them, charging straight for the Humvee. “Get in your seat you little brat, before I come back there and ma-”

  
The front windshield exploded inwards. Black and shaggy fur hurtled through splintered glass to tear into Driver’s throat, ripping free a gurgled scream as blood splattered across the dash.

  
“Shit, shit, shit!” Other Guard ripped at the door handle, desperate to get out before the beast finished with his buddy and turned on him.

  
Screaming filled the convoy. “Feral’s!”

  
The Humvee rocked, a second impact pushing the car off its left side for a suspended dragging of time before slamming back down.

  
Concussive heartbeats hammered through Paige. The girl was crying. Adam and the boy wrenched furiously at their handcuffs. Blood drenched the front of the humvee, its bitter copper stench flooding into the back.

  
Abandoning escape new Guard turned towards the writhing, spitting beast ripping into Driver’s body, reaching down the back of his jacket. A long, blood rusted blade appeared inch by inch from the back of his collar then disappeared into the monsters neck. Crunching bone and ripping flesh tore another scream from the girl. Over and over the Guard stabbed until finally the beast fell limp over the mutilated driver.

  
Paige was on her feet, pressing back against the glass partition. “Are they both dead?” Though gruesome and undeserved, she couldn’t care for Driver right now. But she did care if his body decided it wanted revenge on the wrong people.

  
Panting heavily, blood coating his face and arms to the elbow as he inspected the bodies, the Guard spared her a nod. “Dead. No chance for infection.”

  
“Get his keys!”

  
He was staring out the mauled front windshield. Shadows in the dark swarmed the Humvee. A deafening screech, then the roof dented inwards, claws piercing the metal before a ragged, elongated paw burst through. Paige grabbed and twisted, impaling it on one of the jagged spires of shredded metal. The Feral shrieked, ripping its paw open to dislodge the spike and retreat through the hole. It would feel pain only for as long as it took the blood rage to take hold. Paige wasted no time, banging on the partition. The Guard whirled, blade dripping, gouging a deep scratch into the glass. Blood sprinkled his face, dotting in freckles under wide dark eyes.

  
“You ain’t a guard! Give us the keys or get us outta here before we’re all killed!”  
A muscle ticked under the Imposters jaw. He slid the driver’s pistol out the holster, before reaching over the corpses, opening the door and letting them fall out into the dirt road below.

  
Snarls, crunching. Snapping flooded the air. Two more Feral’s threw themselves on to the driver’s body, ripping at it until not a shred remained. The Imposter looked about to wretch until a muzzle dripping crimson shoved its way through the door, thrashing furiously to get at the man. Two shots pulverised the skull, bursting a red rimmed eye, body slumping onto the seat. One kick then the Imposter slammed the door on the carnage. He tore the smallest key from the set in the ignition and threw it through the opened slider at the base of the partition. Tires crunched against the dirt road before the humvee lurched into action.  
Paige pawed where she heard the key patter, unlocking her cuffs. Three black shapes bound after them in the slip of dirty window. Two and a half bodies remained in the road.

  
Feral’s raced for the right to the kill. Broken limbs from mutations human bodies were incapable of handling set awkwardly, random sprouting’s of shaggy and matted fur over blistering red skin as they chased down the Humvee. At the rear of the pack limped a straggler, one leg dragging. A ways from claws capable of shredding steel like it was paper, but a mangy ear protruded from the sunken half of its skull, fresh blood blanketing a muzzle cracking through jaw up into nose. They’d been bitten, most likely by Carrier’s, dogs or something as big and nasty. Far gone Packers and a newly infected Roamer chasing their kill.

  
“Drive faster!” the boy screamed, wrenching at his cuffs.

  
Key was on the seat. Paige was about to tell him, when another Feral leapt from the trees. The Imposter swerved, but previous blows to the wrecked suspension buckled the undercarriage. The car swung out, tipping on its side as it ran up a rut by the road. Trees tried to stall the crash until the humvee flipped, crushing everything as they smashed to the ground.

  
Dull noise of the outside world trickled into Humvee. Paige rolled off the seats onto the floor? The side? The roof? Somewhere but still in the humvee. Left temple warm and sticky, her vision swimming as she came too. She lifted her freed hands to feel blood trickling down her face from her hairline. Steadying herself, peeling her face off of the side of the seat. Only three were in the Humvee. Adam was gone, through a rip in the metal walls.

  
The boy was face down beside her, the girl sprawled on top of him. Her neck twisted at an awkward angle. Paige moved slowly, biting her lip as her leg screamed in pain, and checked her. She didn’t need to press her fingers to her neck to know there would be no beat beneath her fingers. Moving the girl’s body off the boy took bracing her good leg against the wall. Wrists still bound, one shoulder ripped clean from the socket, blood pulsing out of his back around jagged white bone. Paige pressed her hand to the splintered skin as she rolled him over carefully, only for a sharp piece of metal to almost take her eye. The other end speared three inches deep into the side of his chest. Fingers, the warmth once in them fading, clutched the little key.

  
Blood would draw more monsters to the wreck. The Imposter knew that too, long gone, blood-caked front windshield kicked out and shattered across the ground. Discarded articles of uniform were scattered everywhere, torn off and dumped in a trail leading into the forest. Crawling awkwardly to the rip in the wall, trying not to put pressure on her knee like a dog that’d hurt its paw. Not broken but Paige bet it would hurt for a while. A light coating of blood layered the metal, still warm to the touch. Feral’s should have been on her by now. Only thing Feral’s chose over food was more food.

  
How far did Adam make it into the woods?

  
She couldn’t think about that as she squeezed through the hole, her skin not spared to the metals jagged edges, and ran, limping, into the trees. Her throat burned like sandpaper, lungs squeezed in a fist determined to give the Feral’s a second course. Those fingers tightened, she was going to be sick. Then her leg buckled at the knee. Earth gave a rough, unwelcome greeting. She curled into a ball. Waited to be pounced on and ripped to shreds.  
No snarls. No claws. No fire of infection she imagined. Nothing, until the first patter of rain began to sprinkle the leaves. Uncurling, she sat up.

  
And she... was free.

  
She breathed first, then she laughed. Fingers, caked with gore, dug into mud, feeling it slide under her fingernails, into the scars littering her hands. It felt cold and slimy and she relished it, relished the cold, the sting, the dull ache. Rain pelted her, but she laughed until her body began shaking, joy and adrenaline souring to brittle sobs. How long since she’d felt mud, real mud and not the aged grime of an untended city?

  
To her surprise she felt no resentment that Adam and the Imposter left her to die. That other girl, another stranger whose journey ended before it even had a chance to begin. That girl lived six years thinking there couldn’t be a future for them before her truth stamped her out of the world.

  
As sure as the tears streaming down her cheeks and the blood running through her veins, Paige knew her truth; she could, she would, give the world its chance to be whole again.

  
\- Survivor count: One. 


	3. Chapter Two

If there were any regrets in Paige, leaving her sunglasses after her arrest made the top five. Relief from scorching sunshine was gifted by occasional gusts of dust hampered wind. Scheming companions grit and sticky air never let her be, waiting for opportunities to leap up, hurl chunks of dirt or flecks of sand into her eyes, her hair, streaking her burnt skin light brown from the dust rash she’d accumulated. Don’t even get her started on the once white, now heavily sweat stained tank top.

  
Shading her face with her hand, Paige attempted to spare her seared corneas from the suns deadly glare. Temperatures reached ninety five by noon, and blazing heat radiated off the train tracks in waves that obscured the never ending plains stretching out before her. Looking at the steel rails, all those cartoons of people cooking eggs on sidewalks started to make sense. Paige wondered if it would sizzle like her mother’s eggs on Sunday mornings, the way they always did after she put butter in the pan. The thought unleashed a familiar stomach growl coupled with a deep longing, six years and going strong.

  
“My name’s Paige.” Murmured to herself, then stronger since it was for no one’s ears but her own. “Paige Emry, pleased to make your acquaintance... Salutations! Nope. No. Way too formal.” Her pastime of late, saying thoughts out loud rather than thinking them. At the start she told herself she was merely testing her voice, making sure it still worked since there wasn’t another living soul around for hundreds of miles to talk too. The idea of marching into the Facility and announcing herself with a voice crack was too unbearable to consider the question to her sanity.

  
A non-living soul, sure. She came across plenty of those. Not really ones for conversation though.

  
Six years in and some people still referred to them ‘Zombies’, a term that both amused and irritated Paige. Zombies stumbled, had the running capacity of her middle school gym teacher who took too much of a liking to stuffing extra jelly packs into her donuts. Feral’s... Wild eyes. A blood thirst that couldn’t be quenched. Those things ran faster than anything, human or not, Paige had ever seen.

  
Infected versus reanimated was another argument altogether. She’d had a lot of time to perfect hers on the walk.

  
A rotted plank tripped her up as she stepped off of the tracks. Whatever lord was still listening, Paige thanked them for these tracks, knowing she could as far west as she wanted down the decaying planks without fear of a train passing through the desolate area of northern Kansas she’d found herself in. If the kids in convoy were still alive they’d have called her nuts and headed south, see if there was a life outside of the U.S, outside the walls. The Sandbox was her end, a place where she knew she could find Military assistance to help her get home. Going back to D.C. was a waste of time, she’d tried to get their attention and wound up with a get into jail free card.

  
Dust and grit let her be for a moment, enough for a small town ahead to her left to break from the unending waste, silhouetted and shimmering, an oasis in mirage. A wide edged kitchen knife wedged through the belt loops in her jeans, scrounged from an abandoned tramcar diner, offered comfort as she surveyed the town, sorted through her options. She’d been using the train tracks to travel at night, avoid running into anyone, anything, and the worst of the Kansas heat. Didn’t need to see where she was going if the way was literally bolted to the ground for her. At least until she woke up at sunset the day before, picked up her pack and decided it was too light, her canteen too dry, to go on without making a daytrip in search of some more food.

  
The chance of seeking out supplies, early enough in the day that if the town proved safe she could catch enough sleep to keep her night pace, had her heart racing. But the risk of possibly running into her first survivors in weeks kept her pace steady.

  
Any kind of settlement or town she avoided. If smoke rose on the horizon she’d double back to make sure she wouldn’t run into anyone, then to avoid the chance of being followed she’ head south west before looping back north until she came upon the tracks again. She’d met good people in her life, and most of those good people were dead. The ones left decided it was adapt to the new rules or die.

  
But she was down to her final scraps of food and sips of water. It called for a risky stop in the hopes of finding a place that wasn’t completely ransacked, in, by the partially buried sign, the little town of Atchison. Small enough, Paige hoped. Little things were easy to overlook, and no one went to the middle of nowhere to find something.

  
She marked a close spot to get a look at the south eastern border by a Laundromat with a dryer peeking through a splintered crater in the back left corner. Body wired, ready to rabbit it out of there at the first sign of trouble. Crouching at the edge of the Laundromat, clearing both sides of the street as best she could, Paige took a deep breath then moved into the open.

  
The small town looked to have been a quaint one, back in its day. Picking her way down the cracked main street, Paige had a feeling those cracks speared the road way before the outbreak gouged a hole into the American populace. Small towns like this one held such a homey, never-change-a-thing, feel to it that she suspected they once had communal cook outs in backyards. Brick-front stores with greying roads that split off from the main street into cull-de-sacks all lent that cosy, kids riding their bikes to school, family style feel to it – if not for the shattered windows, vandalized cars, and a rotting stench, like sun cooked garbage, she was not inclined to investigate.

  
A building three quarters of the way down main street, standing defiantly intact opposite a barely standing bank, one door buckled completely while the other barely hung onto its hinges as bills lofted across the pavement like autumn leaves, boasted a sign simply reading Store. If her stomach wasn’t starting to cramp from how hungry she was Paige would laugh at the irony; the oldest treasure of the world outlasting societies made up version of it. The idea of that store being gutted as the bank had been so savagely butchered filled her with a loathing she’d never have been able to fathom had it not been for the two day starvation she was pulling herself through one step at a time. You broke a window to get inside, but in no way would any survivor dare to further risk possible food inside. But that paper collecting dust on the roads would make good tinder if she ever wanted a fire, so maybe money still had its uses.

  
Foregoing her usual outside sweep that ended with going through the back, Paige’s hunger pushed her straight through the front door. A bell dinged. She ducked back out at the sharp ring, waited a beat. Nothing jumped out. Slower this time she pushed back in. Aisles of toppled shelving blocked her passage like a crumbling ancient temple. Boxes were ripped open and scattered about like a decimated piñata, every shelf in sight empty or dumped out onto the floor. The excitement Paige felt bottomed out when she realized that anything that wasn't badly expired was cleaned out years ago.

  
Dreading the bells mocking ding-a-ling and moving towards it sullenly, Paige prepared to brood over her wasted half hour as she yanked on the door. It winged away from the frame, bounced off a phantom wall before the actual one and smacked her in the arm as she was halfway out. She ping-ponged into the frame, ricocheted as the door swung back again to spank her on the rump and send her sprawling into the dust outside. She jumped up, vengeance demanded, and stormed back inside, anticipating the swing back and catching the door. Rounding the door jam, fighting with the belt loops like hastily untangling a pair of earphones to get her knife out for proper justification, Paige was met with a box jammed into the space, wedged behind an overturned stand of greeting cards.

  
She pushed the stand away, flimsy metal cardholders clanging to the tile floor as she raised the knife to stab the bully box, pausing only at the shiny tint of the still intact tape. Faded delivery stamps in eroding blue ink marked the stores time of death six years ago, but no stink of spoil or rot could be detected.

  
Paige dropped to her knees, slipping the knife under the tape, breaking the seal and peeling the flaps back with bated breath. Dozens of untouched, slightly dented tuna cans winked up at her in the afternoon sun. Almost ripping the straps with how forcefully she shrugged off her pack, Paige scooped the cans inside by the armload. Her stomach cheered and cramped in its excitement to have more than the bare minimum to eat. Abandoning the stock up, she snatched up a single meaty meal. As she hovered the blade above the can, ready to slice it open for her first meal in days, something else sprang free, rolling out from behind the door to bounce against her thigh.

  
Peanut butter: God talking to mankind through food. And it was family sized!

  
Snatching it up, Paige clutched the large jar to her chest with the zealous passion of Gollum clutching the one ring. She unscrewed the lid and stuck her finger in. Smooth, even better. She sucked it off then licked her finger clean, letting the goo get stuck between her cheek and gums. Every nutrient she would need was packed into this one jar, and it would keep for a very long time.

  
So deep into her peanut butter induced nirvana, Paige didn’t hear the soft skitter of claws until a break in her chewing was filled with a sharp whine.

  
Floppy eared, shaggy golden fur hanging around a neck made for burying your face in. The Retriever stared at the jar in her lap like it was a T-Bone steak, tail swishing from side to side, pink tongue swooping out to run along filmy black jowls.

  
Paige set the jar on the floor, lid clutched in one hand her knife in the other, scooting back while never taking her eyes off the dog. The beast paid her no mind, staring at the jar, a pink flick surfacing around its mouth as it took a step closer. Miracle enough this Carrier slowed when it saw her. Maybe Feral’s liked peanut butter, who knew, but she wasn’t sticking around to find out. Coiling her legs under her, hefting the knife, Paige readied hersef to surge forwards. No pussyfooting around, no hesitations or nicks. Opening its skin without killing it would send a blood rush through the creature, turning it into an unstoppable force of rage, teeth and no moral hold-ups. A quick stab to the neck would be enough. Get it done. Get out.

  
She tightened her muscles, but in releasing the strong leap a shape moved out the corner of her eye. A force like a cannonball slammed into her side. Knocked off balance, she tumbled under one of the toppled shelves, lashing and kicking before she registered what happened. Carrier’s moved in packs, she should have known there would be more surrounding her. Curling her knee up against her chest and kicking out, sending the Carrier spinning away with a surprised yelp when her blind strike hit its shoulder. Rolling, pawing on her knees through the refuse as she scrambled for her knife.

  
Meaty fingers formed a fist the size of her head, gripped the corner of the shelf and hauled. The shelf flew back, flipping over and crashing to the floor. Those fingers reached down, curling around her wrist clutching the knife, and that’s when the real panic set in.

  
She screamed, fighting to wrench her arm free. A Carrier she could take, they were an animal with extra bite. But she was doomed in this store. Packer’s never hunted alone, and the pure animalistic strength from being once human, now so far changed, made them practically invincible without a bullet.

  
Paige rolled onto her front, pushing up against the weight on her back as hard as she could, surging past the Packer’s grip on her arms before it could lock down and bite. Red flashes of pain lit her shoulder on fire as it connected with something hard and smooth, maybe its chin. It grunted as its weight toppled backwards, rolling amongst the discarded cans and wrappers.

  
Leaping for her knife, Paige turned on her heel, raising the blade to strike.

  
Eyes blown wide, unclouded by the frenzy, clear with terror. A blond boy threw one huge hand up. The other curled around the neck of the golden retriever as it growled and lurched jerkily at Paige. “Please don’t kill ma dog!”

  
“Your... your what?” Paige chanced a look down at the retriever. They locked eyes, its lips curling into a fanged snarl.

  
“Cooper, down!” the boy snapped, backing up enough to yank on the dogs collar. It let out a gargled bark, but when the boy’s grip relaxed the dog toed nervously at the floor, watching its master for the next move.

  
Paige let her knife lower an inch, adrenaline souring into anger as the boy got the retriever to sit. “You... you have a dog? Why do you have a dog? I thought it was a Carrier!”

  
Blond brows crinkled over cow brown eyes. “Cooper’s no Carrier, miss. He’s ma dog. He’s jus’ hungry, is all. He don’t mean to scare ya’.” He bent down to the dogs head while he pointed at Paige. “See, Coop. She’s a friend.”

  
“Well he did.” Paige breathed deeply as she stood up, thoroughly rattled and trying hard not to let this bun-head and his dog know it. The boy rose with her. Up, and up. And up. He didn’t seem to have an end until one of the hanging ceiling lamps cut him off and he had to hunch down. Massive shoulders were decked out in a heavy brown jacket with a fluffed white collar. How he wore it in the sweltering sun she’d never know, but it was no wonder she’d mistaken the fluffy, cream collar for fur. “Why do you have a d-”

  
“Travis, did you find Cooper?”

  
Paige drew the knife back up. One survivor with a dog: a little weird but she could handle it. Two survivors, both male by the sound of it. She didn’t stand much of a chance.

  
Travis’s eyes darted to the movement. “Don’t worry, that’s jus’ Jasper,” he said quickly, yet it came as a thick slur in Paige’s ears. He held up his hands, taking a step back. “He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  
Paige didn’t lower her knife. “Why should I believe you?”

  
Travis let his hands fall, palms up. Cooper, still obediently sitting, watched her with eyes as curious as his masters. “We’re like you,” Travis said earnestly. “Tryin’ to make it out here. I didn’t mean to attack ya’, I jus’ didn’t want ya to hurt Cooper.” Both their heads turned at the sound of the front door scuffing across the floor, the bell dinging once before a snap and a clank as it broke off its hinge. Travis looked back to her. “Please trust me. We’re here to help ya, Miss. Emry.”

  
The breath stuttered in her chest. She’d never once said her name, not to them, and she’d have heard them out in the scrub. Stranger Danger videos in grade school still haunted her nightmares, she knew what happened to those kids that took the candy.

  
But he knew her name.

  
Travis didn’t notice her sharp intake of breath as an equally tall, unequally thicker boy with reddish brown whiskers on his chin stumbled into their aisle. He was bogged down with a pack on his back, his knobbly knees quaking under its weight, overall holding himself together with the structural integrity of a poorly put together stork.

  
He didn’t seem to notice her as he caught sight of the dishevelled Travis. “What happened to you, man?”

  
Closing the distance before Travis could answer, Paige darted for the door. She’d have no hope in taking Travis. The guy was big as a barn and looked solid as a brick wall. But this new boy looked like a too tight hug would snap him in half. She grabbed for Jasper’s arm and yanked. He yelped as he stumbled forwards, the packs weight bringing him crashing to the floor, chest wheezing like a pile of breaking twigs. No time to waste. Arm hooking around his shoulders, swinging herself around his shoulders, mounting the pack, knife to his neck as Jasper flopped under the combined weight like a landed fish.

  
Jasper’s flailing limbs locked. Cooper’s hackles shot up like quills down a porcupines back, a low growl threatening from deep in his throat. “D-don’t kill me,” Jasper blubbered, his Adams apple hitching and sinking with each gulp. “We’re... we’re here to bring you h-home.”

  
Paige didn’t move the knife. “Where did you get my name?”

  
“I–we were sent to find you,” Jasper struggled to get out. “I’m Jasper, that’s Travis.”

  
Ignoring the introductions, Paige pushed the knife until it could shave the whiskers on Jasper’s throat. “Who sent you?”

  
“The Facility!” Travis blurted, Jasper’s face turning white. He dug under the thick furry collar of the jacket, pulling out a set of silver tags from under his shirt. “They gave us these so you’d believe us.”

  
Paige kept the knife against Jasper’s neck. Thrusting her free hand under his hideously purple shirt, fingers slicking over clammy skin. If his heart beat any faster she thought he may actually collapse from a heart attack. When her fingers touched steel she pulled out a pair of dangling chains.

BIO-HAZZARD RESPONSE BUERU: LAB TECHNICHIAN

JASPER KINCAID.

She dropped the tags against Jasper’s chest. Metal clinked with each of his rapid breaths. Travis didn’t blink, his whole body completely still, save for the hand clamped on Cooper’s collar.

  
It was all too coincidental. Two people from the Facility turning up while she was on her way there. Life, especially now, wasn’t that kind.

  
As if he could sense her hesitance Travis cautioned a step closer. Paige tensed. Jasper whimpered like Scooby Doo whenever he saw a ghost.

  
Travis held up his hand defensively and moved back again. “We were sent when your band was activated.” He nodded to where the metal encircled her neck as he slipped his jacket off one shoulder and pulled down his dusty brown shirt collar. Grey metal poked out from beneath the fabric. If he tipped forwards enough she’d spot the tiny sets of teeth puncturing the skin. “They fitted us with collars, so they could track us if we, y’know, died on the job.” Slipping his jacket back on, he rolled his huge shoulders. “Our boss sent us.” He brightened as if suddenly remembering something. “You’ll know ‘im! Dexter Emry!”

  
Her uncle’s name pushed all doubts aside, hesitation turning to desperation. “What about his partners? What about Craig or Lilly Emry?”

  
The worry lines in Travis’s face fell away, morphing into something she recognised and hated. Like he was some stranger knocking on her door because he’d run over her cat. “He’s the only Emry there we know of, Miss.”

  
The hole drilling through her heart for six years collapsed into a giant crater, sucking in anything left she could pull to the surface to keep her going. The tide was going out, current tugging at her feet, pulling the sand past her ankles like she was going to be sucked into the centre of the earth.

  
The knife fell away from Jasper’s neck. He wasted no time in scrambling away from her on hands and knees towards Travis and Cooper. There wasn’t even a line on his neck, but from the way he was gasping and clutching at it, you’d think Paige had been crushing his windpipe. Both boys watched her cautiously. She sniffed, slipped the knife back through her belt loops and stood up. They rose with her, Jasper stepping back while Travis eyed her warily.

  
“Do-” Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat. “Do either of you have experience in fighting Feral’s?”

  
They let out breaths as one, realizing together that she was no longer against them. Jasper’s face broke out into a grin, his bristles twitching. “Obviously,” he said, skinny chest puffing out. “They chose us specially to guide you back to the Facility.”

  
“Plus all the other techs are dead,” Travis added with a big grin and small shrug.

  
Jasper deflated like a balloon, turning a flushed a glare on Travis.

  
They couldn’t be any older than her. Size and bulk where on their side, that was painfully obvious in Travis’s case. But she remembered how much Ella sprouted in the sixth grade, shooting up like a sun flower while Paige could barely reach the middle shelf of the kitchen cupboards. She wasn’t too impressed with them either. Jasper nearly passed out in her grip after all. If it turned out their story wasn’t quite on point, she could only hope Travis was as slow as he was bulky.

  
But almost a month after having it put on she could feel the needles of the monitoring band digging into her flesh like a set of metal teeth. No one would volunteer to have one clamped around their neck just to steal from a girl travelling by herself. Unless...

  
“I’m not travelling with anyone,” she said, recapturing the boys attention. “There’s no group waiting for me.” No group they could ambush.

  
“Good,” Jasper said.

  
“We weren’t goin’ to force you or nothin’, but we were only prepared for you,” Travis added.  
Jasper grinned at his friend. “Now there’s no one else for us to worry abou-”

  
A window shattered, all three heads turning in the direction of the noise. Paige’s hand flew to her knife handle the same time Travis’s clenched into fists at his side. Jasper looked ready to start snivelling again as he shakily gripped at the packs straps.

  
Paige began to move towards the sound, but Travis reached out and stopped her. “No,” he said, voice low. “Not jus’ yet.”

  
Jasper was already moving around the store. He shucked the pack off his shoulders, burying it under a toppled shelf and discarded magazines. That was smarter than trying to run with it on, Paige supposed. Jasper flopped like flapjacks on the pan when she’d pulled, and she doubted anyone cared about Kim Kardashian’s 2016 Cosmopolitan cover What Does She Think About Her Sisters? Kim Speaks! back then, and especially now.

  
Travis guided Paige, following Jasper as he moved behind the counter at the back of the store. Cooper began to follow but Travis stopped him with a raise of his hand. “Cooper.” The dogs ears lifted, eyes trained on Travis’ two fingers and thumb cocked to mime a pistol. “Bang.”

  
As if an actual bullet struck the dog down Cooper flopped to the floor. His tongue lolled against the ground, his tail stilling. Paige wondered if something was actually wrong with him.

  
Crouching in a clump behind the counter, the three of them watched the door swing open again. One head, no, two, walked in. Low mutterings filled the space of the small shop.

  
“You sure you heard them in here?”

  
“I heard something coming from this building.”

  
“If you’re walking us into a pack I’ll serve you up to the mutts myself.”

  
“Shit,” Jasper whispered. “I was hoping for a Feral.”

  
“What?” Paige asked, her voice so low she wasn’t sure if it actually came out.

  
Travis watched the quarrelling men between glances at Cooper.

  
Jasper looked at her. “We tracked where two of the signatures of the convoy died at the wreck. We picked up your tracks-”

  
“Cooper picked up her tracks,” Travis muttered under his breath, too quick to not be in reflex.

  
“-and followed as best we could. Lucky for us you aren’t very good at keeping yourself hidden.”

  
“Seems neither were you guys,” Paige murmured, peering over the counter again.

  
“Quiet,” Travis hissed the same time one of the men jumped back from the magazine pile, exclaiming, “Is that a dog?”

  
Patchy, burnt skin covered the neck of one man as he looked at Cooper over the top of a shelf holding half its school supplies display, a crowbar hefted across raw blotchy shoulders. Eyes bloodshot from dehydration, sunken into his head from starvation. Every bone in his skull shifted as he scanned the store.

  
Another kneeled beside Cooper. She couldn’t get a look at him with the shelf obscuring half his profile. On her knees, she crawled to peer around the edge of the counter. Copper skin welcomed the sun’s rays. Even in the gloom of the store he shone like freshly washed cherries. Clothes, like so many scavenged, were shoddy, but vibrant colouring and tighter stitching suggested recent treasures; dust stained jeans with a rip in the knee, a dark shirt torn at the neck like it’d been grabbed in a scuffle. Blue material stretched taut over a chest and set of shoulders carved from stone, flexing visibly under the fabric as he touched the shaggy fur on Coopers neck. Both men ran in the same group, but leader privileges were obvious.

  
“Looks dead,” the leader said, his voice rumbling like a Charger. “No bites... Probably overheated.”

  
“Boo hoo,” Sunburn snickered, slipping the crowbar from his shoulder and nudging his boss with the rusty toothed end. “Think there’s more in the back?”

  
Leader looked to where Sunburn pointed with the other end of the crowbar, past the shelving, eyes skirting the mess on the floor, around the counter, over Paige, landing on the listing door to the stockroom. Paige ducked back, biting down on her gasp.

  
He saw her. Must have looked right at her.

  
“No. They’d have come running by now.”

  
Sunburn made a suggestible noise in his throat. “You in the mood for Korean?”

  
Travis tensed, relaxing only when the leader shook his head. “Who knows how long it’s been lying here.”

  
Paige watched him stand, his head rolling up from hunched shoulders that popped as he pushed his chest out and pulled them back in a deep stretch. A tower of a man, crowned with a hacked at, tumbling mess of black curls, dark almond eyes surveying the battered store with a too calm, too aware of himself and his powers diligence. His familiarity a stone of dread sinking in her stomach; the bully walks into the room and you beg you’re not the victim of the day.

  
A warning light flashed at the base of her spine, hair rising up to her neck. Her whole body was ready to draw her knife and fight her way out if it came to that. When Jasper’s hand touched her arm she nearly vaulted the counter. He motioned behind them. Travis was already crawling around the counter to the yawning doorway to the back.

  
Jasper took lookout as Paige squeezed around him and towards Travis. Her earlier assumption on the boys was beginning to feel rushed. Jasper could have easily gone before her, would have been more practical. But they insisted she go first. In that moment she felt very protected.

  
The back once doubled as break room and storage space. A wobbly table and listing door to an apocalyptic lavatory shared the space with crates filled with food so rotten it smelt like Paige ran into a wall of spoiled fruit and expired meat. Travis almost barrelled over one of the crate stacks as they dashed for the delivery door. Lock crushed, the door swung lazily in the breeze. Travis ran through, and Paige thought they were home free as she followed, before the air in her lungs burst out as she crashed into Travis’s back and Jasper crushed against hers.

  
A third and fourth guarded the delivery door. One pointed a ragged looking pistol at Travis’ chest, a target too huge to miss. Wicked lines framed a grin while small piggy eyes roamed gleefully over the fresh catch like circling birds of prey.

  
Paige wasn’t looking at him, barely glanced over him as her eyes swept the danger and landed on a ghost. Head bowed behind the third killer like he was being scolded by the sun as it beat on the back of his neck. Wringing his hands in concise, circular pressing motions. Adam. Pale eyes flickered to her, away again as he shifted his weight, favouring his right side. She wanted to ask what the hell he was doing all the way out here with three killers, while another part of her wanted to throw her arms around him. Thank whatever lord there was left another person unfortunate enough to stumble into her life didn’t die all those weeks ago.

  
The door banged like a gun blast against the wall behind. Fingers drifted across the back of her neck, shoulders locking upwards at the contact. The man, she wasn’t sure which, laughed, and it screeched against her insides like nails on a chalkboard.

  
“They tried to get away,” Sunburn jeered as he walked past her.

  
“Tried.” The third man snickered, pistol jerking in his grip.

  
Jasper looked like he would turn blue any second if he didn’t breath soon. Travis’s throat bobbed as he swallowed back what was no doubt the urge to call for Cooper.

  
“Adam.” Irritated thunder rumbled at Paige’s back. “Keep hold of this.”

  
Marching past Paige and her new sunburned best friend, their leader gripped Cooper’s collar tightly in one hand. Adam hesitated as Cooper thrashed and barked. Pistol jumped back, cursing, wanting no piece of a dogs teeth. Somehow Adam got his hands on the collar and away from Cooper’s gnashing jaws. He was lurched forward a foot before he got the dog under control, throwing his leg over its back to lock Cooper down completely. His shoulder dipped and Paige could see faded blood staining his side.

  
“You got it?” Impatience dripped from the rhetoric.

  
Resisting the security of her knife, Paige took a shaky step forwards past Travis. Pistol tensed at the movement, flicking the slim barrel to her. Leaders eyes tracked his buddy, a brief window opening his face into a glare, closing just as fast. He wouldn’t want her bleeding out before he could have his fun with her.

  
“We don’t want any trouble.” Keeping her voice steady felt like forcing down a hiccup. Outnumbered. Out gunned. Their best chance at a fair fight wrangled between Adam’s legs. “We want to get back to the tracks.”

  
“Aww. Leaving so soon?” Sunburn pressed his hand to his chest in mock hurt, a hacking snigger ruining the performance. “But we just got here. At least let us introduce ourselves.” Snakes hissing through a broken nose composed a spitting voice, the hairs on the back of Paige’s neck standing up. “I’m Jones.” He gestured to the one holding the pistol. “That ball of sunshine is Rogers.”

  
“Knock it off,” the leader snapped before Rogers sickly smile could reveal how many teeth he was missing.

  
“Yes sir, Mr. Grace. Sir,” Jones muttered petulantly, doing as told and backing away.

  
Grace, if that was his name, kept sharp eyes on his men as they leered at her. Tracking each of their actions and moves in case they stepped out of line. The strap hinting at a rifle slung around his back. Paige had an inkling he didn’t need it to keep the other three in check. Rogers had his own gun after all.

  
“We’re sorry,” she spoke directly to Grace, ignoring the other three as best she could with a gun pointed in her face. “We didn’t know this territory belonged to someone.”

  
Amused dark eyes prowled over her beneath Grace’s mop of curls. Almost as tall as Travis. Shorter than the bean pole that was Jasper, definitely not as breakable. “It doesn’t. We’re passing through.” Straight teeth showed, a hunters grin locking on its prey. “Actually, we’re looking for something. Thought maybe you could help us out, Princess.”

  
Paige’s fingers twitched towards her knife handle as Rogers and Jones took steps forward. Jasper and Travis inched closer to her - though she wasn't sure if it was out of protection or cowardice.

  
“We have nothing you’d want,” The steady facade was slipping between her trembling fingers.

  
“Well then, you’ll have nothing to worry about, will you?” Jones hissed. “But we’re going to have to ask you to remove your clothes.”

  
Rogers chimed in, “We just need to check you for something. A sort of... identification.”

  
Horror filled Paige, consuming her soul, ruling the barest twitch of her left arm against her ribs. All Grace needed to confirm his suspicion. He slung the rifle around his back to rest in his arms, the barrel pointed at her. “Strip her.”

  
Rogers and Jones swarmed, their hands tugging off her green shirt, ripping the white tank top over her head, unbuttoning her pants and yanking them down to her ankles. Jasper and Travis tried to move in and stop them, but all Grace had to do was point the rifle at Cooper and Travis backed down. Jasper didn’t choose then to step up to the plate and Paige couldn’t say she blamed him.

  
Heart threatening to crack through her ribs, Paige trembled as she stood in her grey repurposed bra and underwear. Grace’s staring at her naked flesh set it crawling. Jones groped her with his calloused, grimy fingers, while Rogers poked at her soft flesh like it was the first time he’d ever seen a mostly naked girl. Unclipped nails scraped mercilessly along her stomach and waist, livid red welts left in their wake as the predators circled. Paige squeezed her eyes shut so tightly stars burst behind the lids.

  
Then Jones halted, crowing, “Bingo!”

  
Grace strode forward, shoving his gun into Rogers hands, forcing the man to hastily pass his own pistol to Adam. Paige grit her teeth as he sauntered up to her, ordering the others back. Despite her immense terror she did her best to examine him, much the way his intense, dark eyes studied her. Chin sculpted from rock, cheekbones a high line to the bent bridge of a nose broken more than once. A faded scar slit his top lip on the left side. Freckles splashed his tan skin and softened his otherwise sharp features, but the boyish cut to his marble features weren’t enough to dim the dawning horror as demise stared her in the eye. 

Grace brushed a calloused finger along her cheek, tilting his victorious grin towards her. “You’re lying to me." Stale breath fanned her face. Teeth showed wickedly. "Because I’m thinking you may have what I’m looking for after all...”

  
Barely there sensation tickled as his hand skimmed her waist, latched on, pulling her flush against him. Rough fingers grazed her hip, behind her ribcage until his palm splayed the centre of her back, curling her even tighter into his broad chest. As his fingertips brushed along the marred skin encompassing her ribs his eyes narrowed and his lips curled wickedly. He pressed down, forcing a jolting flinch from her.

  
He’d found the brand.

  
“It’s real,” Travis wheezed.

  
Jasper began to sputter as he made a feeble half step towards the men. “Ha-haven’t you guys ever had a bad tattoo?”

  
“Shut up,” Rogers snapped, he and Jones cackling in triumph. A simple shift of his gun was enough to warn the two techs back into place.

  
Grace’s voice whispered haughtily against her face, “You’re branded, Princess. Looks like you’re what I've been searching for.” He gave her a despicable wink. "And word has it that you're headed down south to end this party.”

  
His nails dug viciously into a particularly sensitive crosshatching of scars, marking her for what she was.

  
The walking cure.

  
Well, technically, possible cure. Nothing was proven. No infection she’d shrugged off. No blood test to prove the rumours right or blow her fame away for good. Defining lines didn’t exist to desperate people. What might keep them alive that little bit longer was good enough. No one, especially her, knew if what ran in her blood was the key to the cure, or another dream to sputter out and fade into the dark. For all she knew it could be slowly killing her – a monster worming its way through her blood until it reached her heart, her liver, her brain, her kidneys, and shut her down.

  
Once rumours of a girl who could put a stop the end of the world were laughed off as nothing more than B-plot science fiction. She’d laughed with them and hyperventilated quietly afterwards. Branding her robbed her of the safety of obscurity, and sent a message. One look at the mottled flesh on her ribs told them the truth. She was real. The cure was real. The end of the end of the world could be real.

  
There were some who’d throw their lives down for Paige. The rest would rather see her dead then continue to carve lives out of chaos and anarchy, abandoned to their desires. Loosed from their corrals, running free from society, and now they knew Paige was the one who could close the gate.

  
Potentially.

  
Grace cocked his head towards her. “You do know we have to kill you, right? It's nothing personal. Can't have you screwing things up for us. You understand.”

  
The diminishing space between them felt pretty personal. Vulgar satisfaction bathed his voice. Bile rose fast and hot to the back of Paige’s throat, adrenaline rushing up behind towards the weak restraints of her self-control. She tried to pull back. He met the escape with a warning glare, grip tightening.

  
Her bravery crumpled beneath the fingers clenching her ruined skin. Panic rushed through the cracks, incinerating her calm, igniting a blind last ditch thrash for freedom. Squirming her arm free, only for it to be pinned to her back when he twisted from her clawing fingers, so she lurched forward and spit in his eyes.

  
Grace halted Rogers and Jones surge forwards with a calm raise of his hand. Twisting at the waist to look over his shoulder, his men’s eyes hungry for blood and something much worse looking back at him. He wiped the saliva from his cheek and chin, eyes slowly drawing back to hers, grip tightening on her back. “If you’re interested in swapping bodily fluids, Princess, that can be arranged...”

  
Gripping her chin between thumb and forefinger, Grace pulled her forcefully up as he came down, crushing his mouth savagely to hers.

  
Paige stiffened, sense obliterated by the sheer violence of the kiss. He may as well have slapped her. Teeth clacked together while the slimy glide of his tongue shoved past her lips. Planting her free hand against his chest she threw him off with all her might. Grace stumbled back, cackling, Rogers and Jones chiming in. Adam remained nonreactive, looking down as he held tight to Cooper’s collar.

  
Grace gestured for Jones, barely having to reach before his lackey thrust a machete into his hands. The long weapon gleamed in the scorching Kansas sun. He twirled the weapon in his hand, getting a feel for its solid weight after the balance of the rifle. Slivers of steel flashed between splatters of dried gore, more hungry for her blood than anything else. All the food in her pack wouldn’t sate him or his blade.

  
“Kill her,” Jones hissed, handing Grace his gun.

  
“I’m not wasting bullets. For the girl, all I need is the knife.” Business–like, as if the simple act of killing a person was no more complex than pulling a weed or ripping off a band-aid.

  
“Yes sir.” Jones sneered, slinging the rifle over his shoulder and crossing his arms.

  
Paige couldn’t back up, her heart pounding. Couldn’t run, horror rooting her to the spot. If she went the other way and closed the distance to fight what could she really do? One flinch and the knife would finish her, or the gun would. As fast as she’d like to think she was, nothing could out run the few seconds it took to draw the gun, rack the shot, aim the barrel at her back and fire.

  
She wouldn’t cry, not for a man like this. A man like him enjoyed this. He’d drag out her death slowly, a few cuts here and there that they would watch slowly bleed the life from her. Or a quick slit across her throat. She’d fall to the floor and his face peering gleefully down at her would be the last thing she ever saw.

  
It was that famous blood they wanted to see. Maybe they’d keep a piece for a souvenir.

  
Rogers and Jones crowded in, close enough that if Grace got her neck just right they’d get splatter on their faces. They’d like it, she bet. They didn’t look like they washed anyway – Jones’ hair plastered with grime, like he’d covered it in cheap hair gel.

  
Blade dangling from his hand, Grace advanced. Staring right at her, past the front and out through the other side, seeing her naked and shaking without a blink. Yet he paused, cocking his head to the side as he looked curiously down at her. Was she supposed to be begging for her life? If that was the case he was wasting the last few seconds of her life waiting for it. He’d sussed out why she was heading for the Facility. What he never heard was her begging for her life.

  
“Close your eyes, Princess.”

  
His grip tightened on the handle. Paige tensed, the oddly kind warning igniting a fire of defiance in her. If he was going to kill her, she’d make him look at her while he did it. He shrugged, rolled his shoulders back, then the knife came up. She vaguely heard Jasper and Travis cry out. Adam looked away, screwing his eyes shut as Grace swung. An upward arc, cleaving the air as it bulleted towards her.

  
Then his body pivoted, his left arm dipped, and the blade sliced up Jones’ stomach. The man staggered, a crimson trail spilling in front of him like a splotchy red brick road. He made it two steps, entrails emptying out, dragging before him across the dusty ground, before he collapsed.

  
Grace turned, driving the blade forwards. Rogers shock slowed him down, fumbling to get the rifle off his back. Levelling it at Grace’s chest, he pulled the trigger as the knife disappeared into his stomach up to the grip. The rifle clicked hollowly. Grace twisted the blade, blood spurting out over his hands. Rogers gasped wetly, blood flecking his lips. He dropped the rifle, grabbing onto Grace’s shoulders as he collapsed forwards. Grace pushed him back, letting him slide down the blade, bone scraping steel like ice-skates being sharpened. The man lurched on his back, gargling until his body let out one last violent spasm, then stilled.

  
Paige stood, frozen and gore splattered. Maybe he’d already killed her. Was she caught in some suspended limbo between life and death, watching her death re-enacted on others? Grace turned, slowly, bloodied chest clotting with the dust that coated him, and as he looked at her Paige realized that this was very, very real.

  
“You’re... you’re not killing me?” she managed to wheeze, the same time Jasper let out a whispered “Ho-ly shit.”

  
“Why are you just standing there?” Grace barked instead of answering. He bent down to pick up his rifle, hands red to the elbow. A whine made him raise his scowl. “Adam, let that damn dog go.”

  
Freed, Cooper turned on Grace with his hackles up but didn’t move on the attack, like he couldn’t figure out what the remaining murderer was up to either.

  
“You didn’t kill me.” Paige couldn’t believe the words even as she said them. The second Jasper touched her shoulder her nakedness came hurtling back. She bent to pull her jeans back up. Seeing her line of thinking, Jasper raced to retrieve her tank and green shirt.

  
Grace popped the cartridge out and swung the rifle onto his shoulders. “No shit.”

  
Her eyes tracked the movement. “He could have shot you.”

  
Reaching into his back pocket, Grace produced a second cartridge, looking at her like she was the kid who answered five to the question Two plus Two. “You need bullets to do that.”

  
“You planned this,” Jasper breathed in disbelief. “Are you letting us go?”

  
Paige watched Adam look to Grace at the question, eyebrows crinkled and his teeth pining his tongue to his gums, like he was afraid he would be scolded if he spoke up. It was the first time he’d so much as lifted his head since their trio ran through that delivery door. Adam never once looked at Rogers and Jones, as if he were watching a horror movie and knew what was coming as the girl called was anyone out there. Hands over his eyes so he wouldn’t have to watch.

  
Grace pinned Paige with those fathomless dark eyes, locked and barred to whatever reason or blackness lived in his soul. “You’re coming with me.” He bent down, cleaning his blade on Jones’ shirt. “No one but me is making sure you get to that Facility.”

\- Survivor Count: Six


	4. Chapter Three

“What do you reckon he was put away for?”

  
“I think it’s pretty freaking obvious what he was put away for, Travis!”

  
“Jasper, don’t yell at him.”

  
“We’re not actually letting him come with us, right? One of you guys tell me we’re not letting him come with us!”

  
Grace met his victims in prison, at least that was the story he was sticking with. According to him they’d never been nice guys – said with an indifferent shrug, covered in their blood. Despite Paige’s less than pleasant experience with them, that didn’t excuse the butchering still staining her skin. She’d pulled her clothes back on, blood coating her like a sunburn and his eyes on her like a snake about to strike.

  
For the deliberation he waited atop a crate a little ways away in the shade of the store. Adam nestled himself easily on the ground beside him, flipping through a handful of postcards scooped up from inside. While Adam was courteously pretending not to be listening to her, Jasper and Travis, the prisoners eyes stayed glued to them, to her.

  
_You’re coming with me. _

  
He lifted a hand to scratch irritably at his chest. Flakes of splattered blood crumbled and scattered to the ground. It was starting to itch, she knew, because her own skin tickled as Roger’s blood began to crust under her clothes.

  
“We haven’t got all day,” he growled from the shadows of the store.

  
Resentment blazed within Paige at his callous tone. “And we haven’t finished, murderer!” she shot back with a toss of her head.

  
His gaze narrowed on her.

  
Alarm flared within Paige as he stood. Jasper stepped between them, already shaking as the killer advanced. Up close he was taller than Grace, but from the way the prisoners eyes looked him up and down, like a dry twig to be snapped in half, the murderer didn’t feel any of the menace Jasper was failing to muster up.

  
Grace looked past the trembling boy, a cruel spark lurking in the bottomless depths of his eyes. “I’m pretty sure my former cell mates mentioned what you could call me.”

  
This was amusing to him. Her fists clenched at her sides, forcing herself to banish the terror of what she’d witnessed him do. If he saw he could frighten her he’d always have that power to use. Jasper could never scare him, if he’d ever had that chance. Now the murderer didn’t bother to see him.

  
“You mean the ones you slaughtered?” she shot back in her best imitation of ferocity.

  
“So next time I let you get slaughtered, Princess?” She made the mistake of bristling at the bait. He smirked. “Look, I was searching for the girl with the cure. So are others, for very different reasons. So when I ran into some old contacts from my prison days I let them think our reasons were shared. They watched my back, I looked for you. Right up till about ten minutes ago.” He must have seen the disbelief on her face and rolled his eyes at it. “If they’d figured me out before I got to them, they woulda’ killed me, then you. After they’d had their fun. I protected you.”

  
“After you stripped me down in front of them!” Venom coated the words so thickly she could taste it. In a move she didn’t remember ordering she jabbed her finger at his chest. “You let them run their filthy hands all over my body! They were going to... You made me think I was going to die!”

  
He looked down at the finger, then at her with flat dark eyes. It took all her willpower to keep it where it was, refusing to give in to his unspoken order. His gaze traced over her, from the furious groove in her brows to the thin line her lips speared across her mouth.

  
His own lips curved wickedly. “All for show.” Shifting back on his heels, rolling his neck until its pop was echoed by a satisfied sigh. The showful apathy sent a hot flush of anger up Paige’s neck before she could stop it. “Pretty sure I already explained this, but if you need it explained again, listen closely this time.” He began to speak low and slow, gestures flat with long pauses in between. “If they’d... known my plans... weren’t on track with theirs... they’d have killed me... Then done much less kind things to you.”

  
That roused a shudder, invasive images penetrating her mind, forcing their way in until the only comfort she could draw against them was to band her arms around her midsection. The murderer was looking at her in a way she didn’t like, as if he could see what she was picturing, understand its horror and her. How could he? She knew men talked about their conquests with woman, both real and more likely fabricated – why ruin a good story with the truth after all. What had Roger’s and Jones boasted around the camp fires at night that made him look at her in such a pitying way?

  
“What you’re thinking,” he said, verging on comforting if he didn’t look so satisfied that she was starting to understand. “It was worse. It will always be worse then what you can imagine. They’d sense they weren’t living up to your nightmares and measure up. You’d be stupid if you didn’t feel sick.”

  
“Then why did you... you...” She couldn’t say it.

  
His head cocked curiously towards her, waiting for her disgust to abate so she could finish. A delighted grin spread across his face when he came to the answer on his own, slapping her with the reminder she wasn’t talking to a human being. “Kiss you?”

  
“Violated was my word of choice.”

  
“You said so yourself. They were running their hands all over you.” She shied back when he reached out to touch her. “I believe filthy was your word of choice.” She hated him, and let him know it, glaring unflinchingly up at him. She wanted him to see it. Covering that he’d scared her would be impossible, but she could bury it under the mountain of hate she felt for him already. “You forced my hand when you fought. If you’d broken my grip and one of them grabbed you instead, stopping it would have got us both killed. I showed them you weren’t to be touched.”

  
“Wait...” Travis piped up from behind them, eyes trained straight ahead as he processed the information. “You mean... you were helpin’ us?”

  
Jasper scoffed. “Pretty sick way of helping if you ask me.”

  
“No one did.” The murderer silenced him with a glower before looking back down at Paige. “And, despite my methods, I did a damn better job of keeping you safe than those two boobs.”

  
Travis straightened, he and Jasper moving to square up either side of Paige. The murderers eyes didn’t move from Paige, not even to track the movement.

  
“We can keep her safe,” Travis said when his attention did not waver.

  
“Looked a lot like fuck all from where I was standing.” He nodded at Jasper sparingly, his first real acknowledgment of the boy. “I thought you were goanna piss your pants.”

  
Jasper flushed darkly. “We had it covered.” He didn’t deny anything.

  
Grace pulled his machete from his hip, holding it out, blade angled toward Jasper’s throat. “Really? When I had this pointed at her heart-” He gestured to the rifle he’d left leaning beside Adam. “-or when I had that pointed at her head?”

  
“We were going to protect her,” Jasper stammered. “We’ve got weapons.”

  
“In that pack under the magazines?” Grace arched an unimpressed eyebrow at Jasper’s look of surprise. “Did you really think I wouldn’t that? You’re lucky we were on the hunt and Jones is a blood hungry psycho.” He looked down at Paige again. “My mistake. Was a blood hungry psycho.”

  
“You’re disgusting,” Paige spat.

  
“I’m what’s gonna keep you alive.” He stepped up to all three of them, only seeing Paige. “There are a lot more people out there like Jones and Rogers, and it won’t be obvious to only me that those two won’t be able to do shit when they find you.”

  
Paige met his gaze, fists white at her sides. Jasper felt so tense beside her he might snap in two. Cooper began to growl low in his throat, the sound catching the murderers attention immediately.

  
Travis took in a breath, raising his mountain peak shoulders, expanding his huge chest to almost double its size, then let it out. “He’s gotta point.”

  
Jasper gaped at him. “Travis, what the hell?”

  
Travis looked apologetically at his friend. “We don’t know how many bad guys might be comin’ after u-her. Nothin’ wrong wit two extra people, ‘specially one who seems to know what he’s about, is all I’m sayin’.”

  
“He’s one of those bad guys!” Jasper hissed.

  
“Which means he already knows what we need to be lookin’ out for.” Travis shook his head, face pinched. Whatever he was feeling looked stuck between his tongue and his brain. But one look further down, to the golden pooch panting at his side, and the tightness locking him down lifted. “We had no idea what we were gettin’ into when they sent us out here but we’re stickin’ with it, wherever it takes us.”

  
“Why would you let him know that?” Jasper looked ready to start pulling his hair out by the whisker. “What’s to stop him slitting our throats or gutting us while we’re sleeping, huh?”

  
“Me.”

  
The prisoner eyed Paige, so did Jasper and Travis as she walked between them. They didn’t try to stop her, but watched carefully as she stopped before the murderer. She took her time looking him over, trying to see the man beneath the blood stains offering his protection. His fingers gave the barest twitch around the machete handle as the seconds dragged by.

  
She waited until he might snap. “You’ll get me there?”

  
He nodded.

  
“Safely,” She pressed. A resentful noise rumbled from his throat that she waited out, using the time to think. “We’ll go with you. You can do your machete wielding thing. You can point guns at people’s heads so long as it’s not at us. To keep the other bad guys away, not kill them.”

  
She wanted to add an or else, but what could she actually do? Abandon Jasper and Travis to run away in the night? Threaten to cut his balls off if he even looked at her? She wasn’t big. She had no weapon. The spiteful part of herself itched to make things as hard as possible for him. Make him as frustrated and small as he’d made her feel. But if she ran he would find her. Instinct wasn’t necessary to know he was the hunter and she the prey. Everything about him screamed capable. Her only hope at an easy ride south was to remain the prize he wouldn’t touch instead of the quarry he would drag. Whatever threat she made would fail when she couldn’t follow through, and weaken her stance to him.

  
He copied her scrutiny, adopted her infuriating tactic in taking his time. He almost seemed impressed by the guts it took her to step up. “Fine. But there is no us.” He nodded his head at the two boys standing behind her. “They aren’t coming.”

  
“Then no deal.”

  
The lingerings of being impressed by her vanished, his eyes becoming stone. “This isn’t a negotiation. I only need y-”

  
“I agree,” Paige cut off before he could launch into another stream of threats. “I wasn’t giving you the chance to bargain. They come with us, or I don’t go with you. I’m letting you in on the terms of this arrangement.”

  
That pushed him into angry. “I don’t have time to babysit your useless friends!”

  
“And I don’t have to go with you!”

  
“So you’d rather the next Rogers and Jones finish the job? May as well strip down now and-”

  
“Um, guys?”

  
Almost nose to nose, both of them were so incensed Paige forgot Adam was there. The boy gestured for Grace to come, and with a grunt the murderer moved off.

  
“I think we should listen to her,” Adam said quietly, still within earshot.

  
“When do I care what you think?” Grace snapped, too riled to keep his own voice down.

  
Adam’s eyes lowered. “I just thin... Wouldn’t it be smarter to cool it a little? You say it to me all the time, take a deep breath.” Grace grumble out a breath, continuing to listen. “You need her to come. Maybe letting her friends along as well won’t be the worst thing in the world.” Adam’s eyes darted over to them. “The big one has a point. Two extra bodies aren’t a bad idea.”

  
Grace didn’t say anything.

  
Adam began to stammer nervously under the heavy eyes, unconsciously winding an arm around his wounded side. “And... and they come from inside. They’ll know some useful stuff about Feral’s. I don’t know much, not as much as you, but they’ve gotta know some extra good moves to keep them off our backs.”

  
Grace’s head jerked in the faintest of nods as he opened his mouth. Then his shoulders hitched up like a dogs hackles. He turned as Paige tried to look like she wasn’t listening in. Scowling at her, he moved himself and Adam further away from the others.

  
Travis, back in a world of his own, was fussing over Cooper, fondling the Golden Retrievers ears until his back leg kicked like it was going to pinwheel off. Jasper watched Grace and Adam’s huddled forms, occasionally leaning down to ruffle the thick fur at the base of Cooper’s neck. Paige took the time to even her breathing, try to relax the knot in her shoulders. Each time Grace was near her every fibre begged to run from this ugly calm presence in the face of deceit and slaughter. It wasn’t natural. The wrongness of it struck her to the bone each time he looked upon the butchered bodies of his friends with the impassiveness he’d used to cut them down.

  
Only the glaring truth of his refusal to force her, his restraint in the face of easily doing the awful deed again on Jasper and Travis then shove her along, kept her from breaking the fragile tough girl act she was clinging to. He made a mistake admitting he needed her alive. Whatever it was he needed her for, he wanted it without a scratch or word that could be used against him.

  
The two man conference broke. They begrudgingly returned, Paige straightening to meet them, latching onto Grace’s eyes defiantly.

  
“Change of plans,” Grace barked. “The boobs are coming with.”

  
Paige let herself smile thinly. “I’m glad we could come to an agreement.” By the tightening of his jaw, Grace was biting down on a knee jerk need to return with a jab. “ But before we set out I have a question.”

  
“Of course you do,” he hissed through gritted teeth.

  
Paige schooled her triumphant twitch of the lips into a stern look before Grace could snap. “Your guys referred to you as Grace. Is that your name?”

  
Grace’s brows creased, suspicion blooming at the question. Did he really not expect names to be exchanged at all in the weeks it would take to reach Louisiana? Was it resignation to something in himself, or pure disinterest in them? Reluctantly, he conceded without further coaxing that, frankly, Paige didn’t have the energy for.

  
“Atticus Grace.”

  
Paige repeated the name in her mind, hearing it, feeling it fit the vicious and proficient man before her. She tilted her chin up, dishevelled high knot of golden hair like a crown on her head. Lifting her green eyes to meet his dark ones, this close, she didn’t doubt he could see the splash of blue in hers as well as she could see flecks of gold in his.

  
“Paige Emry.” She turned and gestured. “That’s Jasper Kincaid and Travis...”

  
“Boone,” Travis supplied, then scratched his dogs ears. “This is Cooper.”

  
“Don’t care,” Atticus snapped in a growingly familiar way.

  
Travis ignored the comment with the same impassive offence Atticus ignored his existence. Affably whistling for Cooper to follow, he shuffled his huge body through the store doorway to help Jasper retrieve the pack out from under the shelf. Paige decided to join them, have another look around for anything she might have missed – more people meant more peanut butter being shared out, after all – and, as an added bonus, get out from under those inscrutable dark eyes.

  
Atticus leaned against the doorframe, Adam beside him. The two of them talked in low, not to be overheard tones. The man seemed to barely be listening, offering no help as he watched the two boys struggle with the shelf, eyes lingering on the large pack emerging from underneath the magazines.

  
A question raised its head as Paige watched him, one Atticus hadn’t given her the chance to ask, and she doubted he would answer.

  
What changed his mind?

  
\- Survivor Count: Six


	5. Chapter Four

Paige thought continuing to follow the rail tracks east was best. Atticus wanted to go south. So the group each presented their opinions, discussed, thought each option through, and then Atticus didn't like the end result and decided they'd head south.

Paige tried not to let her scowl show as she kept as far from the front of their procession as possible. Travis and Jasper walked at her side. The giant pack on Jasper's back offered ambling spots of shade from the harsh sun so long as she paced it right. Adam flittered between the plodding three and Atticus, checking back every now and then like a nervous hummingbird. Cooper trotted back and forth between the three groups, pushing his wet nose into Paige's palm to check for treats whenever he passed.

Dusky grass swayed from sticky afternoon breeze, and from the first step she'd taken onto the prickly plains Paige was more than ready to leave the unending fields behind. Wading through itchy stalks, bugs and spider webs, being eaten alive by mosquitoes and scratches on her skin didn't take much to detest. She was a born and raised country girl. Didn't mean she liked living in underbrush.

“Pick it up!" Atticus called from upfront.

Paige slowed to the barest of plods. 

“Is it a good idea to be yelling?" Adam's soft voice shook as he skittered towards Atticus. His head turned every few seconds, eyes darting everywhere. "We're already moving around in daylight."

Jasper opened his mouth.

“We aren't slowing down," Atticus cut Jasper off before he could speak. "We aren't wasting time only travel at night either. We move when I say, and I gut any Feral's that cross us." He drew the machete, giving it a punctuating swing. Jones' blood was beginning to rust the blade at the base, a nick where it chipped against his ribs.

"Uh..." Travis nudged Jasper to keep going. "A-actually, you're right. It's safer to travel during the day."Atticus stared at Jasper with hard eyes until the gangly boy began to stammer. "F-Feral's are warm blooded, like us."

"They get hot," Travis simplified.

“No shit," Atticus grunted, but was interested enough to keep listening.

Jasper's voice grew stronger. "They react to the heat like people do, it makes them all sluggish and unhappy. So they save their hunting for night when it's cooler. It's also easier for them to move about unseen. Their other senses, especially smell, make up for their crappy eyesight anyway, so they already claim the advantage."

Fantastic, Paige thought, waiting for the inevitable onslaught of gloating.

Atticus didn't say anything, face unchanging. Jasper began to fidget nervously under the inscrutable eyes. The fur on Cooper's neck rose.

Eyes passing over Jasper to find Paige's, Atticus nodded. "Good to know."

Paige rolled her eyes. Somehow that was a million times worse than any snide told you so. Boys and their power plays. She would never understand it, but at least Atticus' seemed to be about being quiet. It might make him tolerable.

"I bet the government engineered them that way," Jasper said as they walked. "Special Ops night hunters that don't need all the gear. Animals are way more inconspicuous than soldiers. Can't be sued either."

"What is he talking about?" Atticus asked irritably.

Travis smiled knowingly.

"Think about it," Jasper carried on, getting excited. "It's so obvious. The government created the virus."

"No they didn't. It was a project spearheaded by Roja and Em-" Adam quickly shut himself up, glancing back at Paige.

She diffused the impending apology with an indifferent shrug. "My parents pharmaceuticals company opened a study into rabies."

"A disease that was already cured?" Atticus asked, the only interest he could offer scathing.

"That was the study," she said, all the times she'd repeated those words when Roja took it upon himself to investigate her father's disappearance a muscle memory of monotone answers her mother made her memorise. She'd flexed them in the years following the outbreak, when a teacher, a guard, a fellow student at the Boarding Schools, inevitably connected her last name with Roja's unending special attention.

"Get real, man. You ever hear of a thing called government cover ups? Didn't you ever wonder where diseases like rabies came from?" Jasper was beginning to enjoy himself, and the obliviousness to how the topic might be sensitive to Paige was surprisingly refreshing. "They obviously made this virus as a way to control the people. Some kind of domesticated pet mind control, only it got out before they could get it ready to enslave the masses."

"You work in those labs," Atticus' scrutiny switched to deep appal. "You can't seriously think that?"

"We cleaned beakers, man," Travis laughed.

Jasper laughed with him. "Yeah. And why would the man trust the lab stuff with us?"

"Your badges say Lab Technicians," Paige said.

Jasper shrugged. "Think more like assistants."

"We were right to bring you with us," Adam murmured, vehemently avoiding Atticus' condemning glare.

Travis laughed again and cuffed Adam with his giant paw of a hand like they were sharing a joke, knocking the thin boy off balance. "Ha ha! Though given the choice I woulda' preferred my QZ allocation."

“What would yours have been?" Paige asked, trying to imagine how the giant could have fit inside a QZ.

Once a child was old enough to work they were allocated a job in the Quarantine Zones. Distributed from the records, vocations were passed down. What your mother did became what you did. If your father was a mechanic, he taught you everything he knew so you'd be ready for your allocation. Technically a child could start working whenever their parent decided, but they wouldn't see any government support until they were fourteen. No time wasted on teaching. Career's became inheritances.

Travis shrugged, his hand finding and scratching Cooper's head without having to look. "Farmer. Or one o' them livestock handlers that get shipped out to the ranches. Dealer's choice."

"Or mechanic, you know, if they wrote it all out in tractor terms," Jasper snickered.

"And you'd be a dishwasher or box stacker," Travis chuckled, not hint of offence. "Anything that could keep you inside the way you like it."

"Like a beaker cleaner?" Adam flinched when Travis laughed again. A beautiful, sharp chortle that carried over into contented 'ahh's' after several body shaking chuckles, and the nervous boy couldn't help but smile the longer it filled the air.

"Knock it off," Atticus snapped from up front.

Paige forgot Atticus was there. When was the last time she'd messed and joked, lost herself in the joy of another's laughter, especially a laugh that was funnier than the joke? Back when there were no problems beside homework and her world was right-side up. And, from the sound of muffled giggles, and Travis's unabashed guffaw, the others had been feeling that weight for as long as her.

“You were in prison, right?" It took Paige a moment before she realised Jasper was trying to talk to Atticus. Travis' laughter petered out, curiosity blanketing the rest of them.

"Yes." Atticus didn't sound pleased with the sudden group silence.

"Was that before the outbreak?"

"...Yes."

Jasper's chin tilted thoughtfully. "Hm... Any idea on your QZ allocation?"

Atticus didn't answer, walking purposefully on, apparently done entertaining Jasper.

"Drug lord?"

Atticus' pace faltered for a step, shoulder's bunching stiffly, footfalls heavier.

"Hit man," Travis joined in. Jasper nodded excitedly with him.

Atticus stomped onwards. Paige could feel his resolve not to react radiating from him

"Pimp."

"Dog Fighter?" Cooper snorted at Travis, shaking his shaggy head. "Sorry, buddy. 

"Meth maker."

"You already said drug lord," Adam pointed out, eyes on the ground to hide his smile.

"He'd be the supplier," Jasper corrected. "Distributing is different, it puts him on the streets." 

"Still kinda the same thing," Paige joined in, thoroughly enjoying the irritation bubbling at the head of the group. Atticus' tough, silent act was not only tolerable but potentially amusing.

Atticus spun on them, snarling, "Or, you know what, why not Gangbanger? You didn't skip any steps, jumped straight to drug dealer and pimp."

Shame rushed upon Paige, desperately trying to find something other than his livid face to latch on to. Travis blinked, looking between everyone for a clue as to what Atticus was talking about. 

Jasper radiated mortification, raising a shaky hand into a peace sign. "I'm sorry man-I... I-I'm woke... I didn't mean... I'm not...You know... I-"

"Say you listen to rap music and I will kill you."

Jasper squeaked. "I have to pee."

"Subtle," Adam said to the floor. "Do you like basketball too?"

Jasper dumped the pack unceremoniously to the dusty ground, fleeing into the underbrush. So frantic was his escape he missed the smirk overtake Atticus' face. The ex-prisoner ignored Paige's glare and joined Travis, taking his own spot against the standing of boulders bunched away from the side of the dirt track they'd been walking down. A budding construction project for a new laying of asphalt, maybe, never given the chance to be completed. Travis didn't seem to notice, or he didn't care, too busy fussing over Cooper. Lacking any trees for shade, Paige plopped herself down in Travis's hulking shadow, pulling as much exposed skin as she could out of the sun. No sunscreen wasn't a consequence she'd considered for the end of the world.

"Do you know anything else?" Atticus asked into the lengthening quiet. 

"'Bout what?" Travis asked without looking up, scratching under Cooper's chin.

"Feral's."

"Um, not much, I guess." Travis shrugged. "Why?"

"You never overheard anything from the other techs or lab workers?" Adam pressed.

Travis raised his fluffy blond head from Cooper, giving them both a long, failing to figure look, then shrugged. "The techs, the sciencey ones, used to talk about somethin' in the nose." He tapped his own nose, then Cooper's, and the dog licked his finger. "'Parently any human that turns grows back an organ we ain't had since the stone age. It's why the facial disfigurement is first, and the nose bleeds as bad as it does. Dog's still got it. It's why we don't no more; something 'bout dependence on domesticated species. I dunno, but it's pretty cool, ain't it?"

"Fascinating," Atticus sighed. He shared a look with Adam. "Good job, Boomer."

Travis looked up, squinting under the suns glare behind the ex-prisoner's dark head. "My name's not Boomer.”

"In my mind it is," Atticus muttered, more to himself. Travis frowned, unsure if he was being insulted, so Adam laughed good naturedly before he could figure it out, until the blond giant eventually abandoned the train of thought and cracked an uneasy smile. 

On the outside it was a chummy scene. Paige knew already that there wasn't a chummy bone inside Atticus Grace.

She leaned her head back against the rocks, listening as Atticus and Adam failed to disguise their drilling of Travis with curious comments and musings of tech life. His rambling answers drowned their questions with a detritus of useless details, passing the time, the soft drawl to his voice soothing. So soothing that Atticus' occurring interjections for him to get to the point were sanding down gravel in comparrison.

Dozing, Paige roused and readied herself to ingerject, ask what was with all the questions and not let them skirt around the answer. Pounding footsteps brought them all to attention. Atticus drew his machete and Adam fumbled with the pistol at his hip. Cooper's hackles shot up, then smoothed out as Jasper's gangly body parted the bushes. Grinning, sweating from the short jog and heavy sun, his rusty hair plastered to his head.

"Guys, I found something, and it's awesome."

Paige knew a lot of things to be more awesome than a Volkswagen Golf Hatchback half hiked up on a rise at the side of a road, yet Jasper bounded ahead of the group, towards the tottering car it like it was presents under the Christmas tree.

"You think this pile of junk is gonna be useful?" Atticus, as ever unimpressed, voiced the unspoken consensus.

Paige pulsated with nausea at even the possibility of agreeing with him, but this was something she couldn't deny. Abandoned cars littered freeways and city streets like dying leaves of fall. Deep into the back woods of Kansas, away from barran plains broken by only her train tracks, this was the first car she'd seen in weeks. They could be useful, had they not always been ransacked, chopped for parts or drained of gas and totally un-drivable. She doubted this car would be any different.

Jasper propped the bulging pack against the right front tire, moving to the front. Adam went to the driver's side and found the latch to pop the hood.

"Don't judge what you haven't bothered to look for." Jasper hid from the glare Atticus shot underneath the hood of the car.

Travis whistled as he leaned his huge head under the hood. "Nothin' outta place. Batteries' still intact, too." He moved closer, running his finger across some cracks in the top of a thick black box dominating a chunck of middle engine block, humming in displeasure. "Taken some damage."

"So it's useless." It didn't sound like Atticus was asking. 

"He means can you fix it?" Paige said, ignoring the glower being burnt into the side of her head. 

"Little spit and elbow grease, put the giddy back in its up, and this kitty will be purrin'." Travis looked up from the battery at four confused faces. Cooper whined, tilting his head up at his owner. "The old owner probably thought the battery short circuited. Worst case scenario, things over-charged. Fix up this battery and we'll be moving in no time."

Travis dropped to his knees by Jasper's pack. He rifled through, pulling out a mixed array of items, cramming them into a plastic tupperwear for ease. He got back up and bent under the hood, balancing the tupperwear on one giant palm. 

Paige tried uselessly to peek over his hulking shoulder, switching to leaning around the aem working out the battery. "It's really that easy?"

"Sure thing," Travis grunted as he did something with one of the tools, pulling out the battery. Travis turned fluidly, passing Paige the tupperwear, sitting on the lip of the car, body bent almost double to fit under the hood, resting the battery against his upper thighs and stomach as he inspected it. "Worst case, the thing explodes on us-" 

"What?" Atticus asked sharply.

"-but we should have some good miles on us before then," Travis finished like he hadn't heard him, favouring his helper with a conspirators smile.

"Get it done," Atticus muttered, just to get a word in, destroy the notion his authority could be so undermined. He turned to Adam and Jasper. "Go see if there are other cars around and siphon the gas."

"We're not your errand boys," Jasper protested. But when he turned, Adam was already compliantly on his way, his resignation an expert refilling of drained authority in Atticus' bank, hands stuffed in pockets as he walked off in search of more cars. He gestured with his head for Jasper to come with, a thousand different ways of saying 'just do it. Makes things go smoother' in that small head jerk. Unsuported, Adam expertly wedged between him and help from the others, Jasper's defiance crumbled under Atticus' stony eyes. He scuttled to his task with nothing more than an annoyed kick at a rock.

"What about me?" Paige asked, though she still held the tupperwear, continuing her pairing off with Travis, though it never hurt to offer her usefullness. 

Atticus spared her a glance. "Stay here. Try not to be annoying."

"You can't talk to us like this," Paige huffed. "Jasper's right, we're not here to do your chores." 

Atticus offered no reaction. "Took you less than three seconds. You couldn't at least have tried?" 

Paige's cheeks flamed against her will. Never lucky enough to be exempt from dumb bullies in her life, the kind who made fun and pushed you over. And she'd met the far worse, slimy counterpart who often held those bullies leashes, who laughed when they made you squirm from how they looked at you, then the real torture would begin with nasty words, brining you into a fold then dismissing you from it; a back and forth of penetrating your guard then ripping you out from the inside.

Atticus Grace switched between both of those bullies at will.

Oblivious, Travis carried on with his work, popping the top off the battery. He was whistling as he worked, Steamboat Willie if Paige recognised the tune. He took a look inside, then glanced over what he'd piled into the tupperwear. He got out the water bottle and took off the cap. He paused, inspecting the water for a moment, seeing something his two companions could not, then shrugged one of those 'whatever happens, happens' shrugs and dumped the whole bottle into the battery.

Paige didn't like the idea of whatever happens if it involved an exploding car battery. Atticus clearly didn't like the sacrifice of an entire bottle of water. 

Travis carried on working. He took out a knife and sliced up the now empty bottle, then cut out a piece of plastic big enough to cover one of the cracks. He gestured for Paige to come closer, and without him having to ask she held out the tupperwear for him to pick out a lighter, replacing it with a wide smile for her.

Atticus leaned over the pack, flap unbuckled and yawning open. "How much have you got in there?"

"Weren't you ever a boy scout?" Travis answered the question with the amusing rhetoric. He held the lighter over the plastic, his hand steady as he waited for it to melt into the cracks.

"Not a lot of places to camp in the city," Atticus supplied cryptically, in a tone that brokered no attempt at follow-up questions would be well met.

That explains the cold, Paige thought sullenly, her own memories of D.C.'s fortifications against anything green, and bright and home as bitter as Atticus himself. Then she shivered in disgust at the implication of her own thoughts that some part of them might be alike, even fleeting and forced on her end. 

Travis whistled, the tools clinking softly as he tinkered. Occasinally a breeze drifted through the grass. Atticus sometimes crunched across the gravel in a pretense of contributing in faux-management. It wasn't enough for Paige, who hated quiet almost as much as she already hated her new guardian devil. She didn't want to talk to him. But she also couldn't break the silence by talking to herself like she had for the past three weeks. 

"The study wasn't to cure rabies," she murmured to know one, hoping Travis would respond.

"What?" Atticus asked.

Should have waited for Jasper. "RI-117."

"The virus?"

Travis was too involved with his mending of the battery to pay attention.

"It wasn't made to-" she caught herself before she got worked up. She'd had six years of this, of having to defend something that wasn't hers to defend. "My parents pharmaceuticals company, partnered with William Roja, wanted to cure brain ailments - degenerative conditions like dementia. They opened their study into Rabies because they hoped its degenerative properties could be reversed... re-engineered." 

"Huh..." He seemed to give weight to the daring attempt at curing a destroyer of so many lives. "And they made a virus that killed sixty percent of the population instead." Atticus shook his head. "And now one of the harbingers is our president. We can only hope the other idiots were some of the sixty."

Paige forced down the urge to make a grab for the machete and do to him what he'd done to Jones and Rogers. She drew the tupperwear to her chest, pressing the hard plastic edge to her sternum. "They didn't do it on purpose."

Atticus had the sense, or lack of interest, not to argue, watching Travis do his work on the battery instead, even keeping his patience when Travis started whistling again. "This is really going to work?"

Travis glanced at him, fingers deftly cutting another sliver of plastic from the bottle, motions similar to peeling an apple, before going back to the battery. "Worked on my families tractor. I kept that baby running for another year." He let a smug smile stretch across his lips. "If I could do it when I was thirteen I can do it now."

Atticus watched the hands at work as he absorbed what Travis said. He glanced at the pack, then back to watching those skilled hands. When the plastic finished melting Atticus slapped him on the shoulder in what could have been a friendly way, if it had come from anyone else.

He went back to leaning against the car, smirking at something across the road. "Good job. Get 'er done, Boomer."

Paige knew dumb bullies, and assholes who liked to make you squirm. Right now, she couldn't decide which Atticus Grace was.

\- Survivor Count: Six


	6. Chapter Five

Atticus heard Adam and the walking beanpole return, giving no hint he noticed when they tried to show him the lunchbox's equivalent of gasoline carried in a rusted paint can. Truthfully, he'd sent them off purely in the pursuit of some peace and quiet. He didn't count on there being much from the empty roads. The fact that they came back with anything at all was more than he'd expected. That was the benefit of the optimistic pessimist; he was only ever right or pleasantly surprised.

Beanpole (he knew the boys name and already allocated a string of overly qualified nicknames more appropriate than the laziest attempt of most cat owners) handed the gasoline off to Adam for him to bring to Atticus, joining Boomer at the car hood and as far from the gas tank as he could get. Atticus wanted to laugh at the lengths the scraggly boy was going to keep away from him, moving around the car so that Boomer was between them like a blond brick wall. He was making more effort than the Princess. She wasn't even trying to hide her dislike of him as she sulked in the cars shadow, refusing to talk and barely looking at him. The sneers she shot when she thought he wasn't looking weren't as subtle as she thought either.

A wide grin spread across Beanpole's face, whiskers twitching as he looked over Boomer's handiwork. "And here I thought you metal hungry wrench jocks always forget the importance of plastic."

"Can't. Not when yur always in my ear 'bout it," Boomer said without looking up from the battery casing. He had most of the cracks filled in, lumpy nodules of discoloured, melted mortar that stunk like sun baked tar.

Beanpole leaned back on his heels to give Boomer space. "Repetition is the best way to teach."

"I would have guessed bright colours," Atticus grumbled. When Boomer didn't react he wasn't sure if it was on purpose, or if the oversized corncob could only focus on one thing at a time.

Princess awarded him another glare for his efforts.

Corncob (now that he'd thought it he found he preferred it to Boomer) leaned up, cracked his back, rolled his neck. "Since yur so smart, take a look'in the battery for me, Mr. Chemist."

Beaker Boy did just that, leaning over the open battery sitting on the lip of the car, looking into each open well. He made a face when he saw the label on the butchered water bottle. "Not distilled water?"

"Not unless you got some on ya'." Finishing up with the casing, Corncob held the hollow box out like he was inspecting a fine piece of artwork, flicking at bits near the filled cracks to test its durability. Satisfied, he set to fixing the battery back into the casing, securing it tightly, then fitting it back into the car. Hands covered in grease and oil, Corncob smiled dopily with a touch of a job well done. He wiped his hands on his dark brown pant legs then reached up and closed the hood of the car. "That'll have to do."

"Shotgun!" Beanpole thrust one hand up in the air, reaching for his giant back pack with the other.

"Hold up," Atticus' order froze the lanky boy in his place. Behind him, mouth a thin grim line, Adam nodded his understanding. "You and Corncob help me push. Adam, Princess, get in."

The dopy look remained on Corncob's face as he looked around, then fell as he realised that, in fact, Corncob meant him.

"Why both of us?" Princess argued, because of course she would, while Adam went to the driver side door and got in.

"Because, I said so." Atticus smirked down at her, leaning down like they were sharing a secret. "Or do you like getting those little hands dirty?"

She jerked back sharply. Laughter threatened to bubble from his chest at the way her face puffed up then went rose red from anger. She rewarded his restraint with a huff, opening the rusted door to the back seat and climbing inside. Because he was a gentleman he slammed it shut behind her.

Atticus prepared himself for the tetanus and braced his shoulder against the rough metal frame through the front window of the car. Beaker Boy and Corncob moved to the back. On Adam's count of three, keys squealing in the ignition, they pushed.

"Start the car," Atticus grunted. It was heavier than he'd anticipated, or those idiots were slacking.

Adam set his weight behind every desperate twist of the keys until he was up on his feet, hunched over the consul. The engine sputtered helplessly as the car crunched across the road.

Princess leaned over the seat, yelling over the car's squeals and across Adam's bent back. "I can get out and hel-"

"Stay!" Atticus snapped through the window. His hands were sweating, slipping on the metal. "Get it out of neutral, for fucks sake!"

Adam's hands fumbled around the gear shift, throwing it into third then jerking back into first. The car shrieked, gears crunching like breaking bones. Then the box coughed to life, puking from its exhaust pipe a cloud of smoke across Beaker Boy's crotch. As it picked up speed Atticus let the car slide out of his grip. Adam steered it forwards in a slightly shaky line, guiding it back onto the dirt path. Atticus prayed that the car had a working AC. He was sick of being too hot, too sweaty and too sticky in this blast zone of a state. He never thought the old stinking apartment above the Laundromat he once lived in would be considered trading up.

Beanpole whooped as Adam brought the car around, rolling it towards them in that careful, excruciatingly slow way he did everything. Through the front windshield Atticus could see he already had the pistol drawn, steering the car towards them with one hand.

Atticus drew his machete as he turned on the two boys. Beanpole froze midway to picking up the pack. Corncob ordered Cooper still before the dog could attack. Atticus wagered the mutt would be the hardest to control and made sure the yellow-headed bull knew it had his attention.

He pointed the machete at the pack. "Throw it over here."

"I think we sho-"

Atticus touched the butt of the rifle resting against his back, silencing Beanpole. "I don't care what you think. Throw it here."

"And if we don't?" Corncob asked. Cooper twitched forwards at his owner's voice.

"I kill you." Atticus eyed Cooper. The mutt was growling, white teeth flashing dangerously. "Keep that thing back or I get a new coat."

"Try it," Corncob snarled, sudden and vicious.

"I will if it gets too close," Atticus rumbled back, unaffected and steely.

He gestured to the pack again. Beanpole, barely strong enough to lift the pack with both arms, had to let Corncob throw it the distance. Atticus swung the pack onto his shoulder. He took a step back towards the car. Corncob and Beanpole took one towards him. Cooper crouched low, awaiting the command, a gesture, a twitch of the fingers. 

Sick of fumbling around, Atticus threw the machete into the car and slung the rifle to point forwards, aimed at Cooper's head. "Keep. It. Back. I won't say again."

Corncob glared as he slowly knelt beside Cooper, taking the dogs collar tight in his huge hands. "Easy, Cooper. He ain't worth it." 

Keeping the rifle on the two techs Atticus moved to the car, opening the trunk to throw the pack inside. He was so ready to be done with these unending plains, ready to really start moving south, ready to ditch these boobs, stop messing around and get going, that he missed the blonde blur lunge for him over the back seats. Princess flying, spitting fury, hands clawing for his eyes. So sudden he was almost thrown backwards by all five feet six inches, one hundred-fifteen pounds soaking wet force of her. Princesses legs kicked as Adam fought her back into the car, taking a painful looking, glad-I'm-not-that-guy uppercut to his jaw from the back of her heel.

"Liar!" she screamed as she clawed. One hand caught his arm and she dug in fiercely. "Murdering liar!"

Her nails seared hot lines of pain down his arms, wells of blood bubbling up where she found the purchase to savagely dig in. He threw her off, batted away another lunge springboarded off Adam's chest, tempted to grab for his machete again until, wheezing, Adam managed to pull her back into the car. He threw the pack in after her before she undoubtledly kicked off again, slamming the trunk shut on her screaming, enraged, weighted down thrashes. Moving to the driver's side door and getting in, taking the rifle off his back and resting it against the door, in the moment between cheeks hitting the seat and putting his hands on the worn faux-leather wheel, was when Atticus realised just how long it'd been since he'd been in, let alone driven, a car. He didn't care to repeat the experience, but four wheels were faster than two feet, especially with the suspicion he'd have to drag this girl growing heavier with each screaming curse.

He reamined free of attack in the car, the only reason the Princess didn't descend spitting and raging on him the second he got in because Adam's gun rested like an exlamation point to her last curse on his leg. He'd figured out pretty quickly from her back talk that she knew the easier this all went the better.

Good thing she also knew you didn't have to die from a bullet hole in the leg.

Her eyes were green daggers through the rear view mirror. "You're killing them."

"Perceptive," Atticus rolled the car on. The boobie technicians became specks on the road, disappearing as he turned down a corner. Somewhere around here there had to be something that connected them to a highway.

"They were going to slow us down. Now we'll be able to move faster with fewer numbers."

Atticus didn't know why Adam bothered explaining themselves to her. She was never going to forgive them and Atticus was never going to care.

"We wouldn't be movin' at all without 'em," Princess snapped, words slurring as distress poinsoned the ironclad composure she'd held against him. "You'd still be quakin' in your boots every sunup if Jasper hadn't told us more about Feral's."

That wasn't only a slur. It was becoming an accent like syrup overflowing from her mouth "They've been as useful as they'll ever be," Atticus grunted, eyes flicking to her in the rear view. "Like Adam said; we're moving faster now we're two bodies lighter."

"Three," Adam mumbled, barely acknowledging the praise thrown his way as he stared morosely out the window.

He should have known Adam would be torn up about leaving the dog behind, no matter how much Atticus tried force that kind of sop out of him. Like a steak or chop at market, a dead animal was no longer an animal, just a slab of meat – these days a nasty, infected, toothy piece of meat.

They drove on, leaving the plains and finding themselves in dense forest split by the single dirt road they travelled. Wide enough that Atticus hoped it would lead them to a road. Despite the transition from spring to summer barely being underway the leaves were yellow and dry from unrelenting sun. If the car did end up blowing to bits on them the resulting fire would level the kindling woodlands to a charred wasteland.

It could have been a few hours, or a few really long minutes, that they drove on. Impossible to tell when the clock on the dash was stuck at 00:00am, so the only way Atticus had of knowing was the sun in the sky. It shone brightly in dappled patches through the leaves, blazing through the window and hurting his eyes despite the sun protector being lowered.

And of course the Princess wouldn't shut up. If she wasn't thinking up new ways of calling him a murderer, she was droning on and on about going back for Jasper, Travis and the mutt.

It must be hours. No one could be that irritating in just a few minutes of driving.

He was tempted to see if the radio worked, if only to drown her out. He hadn't heard a Stones song since before he got out of prison, and he found himself drumming the beat to Painted Black on the steering wheel without thinking, finding a new way to mark the time slogging by in four minute intervals. The risk, though, of actually playing the radio was far to great to try. Feral's would come running the second it came on, and not to make requests. Their eye sight might be shit but they could hear a leaf fall before it hit the ground and smell the kind of tree it came from. The further into their infected stages, the more frighteningly effective those skills became.

But what a worthwhile reason to go, if it meant he wouldn't die with her prattling in his ears.

Atticus jumped, fingers stuttering then clamping onto the wheel, dropping the drumsticks and cutting off his sixth rendition, (lyrics) when Adam shook his shoulder. Only then did he register the acrid smell slowly filling the car.

"Do you smell that?" Adam murmured, keeping any panic from spreading to the backseat, and as if the car heard the question answered with a sticky belch of smoke that almost took the hood off the front of the car. They both stared through the front windshield as black became all they could see.

"The car's smoking," Princess said from behind them, her plain tone an undercut to the situation.

"I can see that."

Smoke billowed from under the hood, blocking his sight of the road completely. Atticus didn't bother pulling over, just stopped in the road, grabbing his machete and the rifle and getting out before Adam could see the flush of embarrassment hidden under his irritation. He hated cars.

Popping the hood and wrenching it up, a little harder than necessary, he used the machete to prop it up, keeping the rifle slung low in front of his hips. Sloppy maybe, but he felt secure knowing he could pivot round and have it ready to unload if he heard so much as a twig snap. Adam appeared beside him as he tried to assess what was wrong with the engine. Problem was, he knew virtually nothing about cars. He had a very expired licence only because his past job provided the training, but he'd always let his partner drive. For his entire life he'd walked, or taken the bus, from going to school to being shipped to prison.

"Do you think it could be the engine?" Adam's pale eyes watered from the smoke as he peered inside. 

"I don't know, yet," Atticus added hastily.

If Adam noticed he didn't show it. "Travis would know."

"His mutt would know before you would," Atticus snapped. Adam flinched away from the hood, giving Atticus space. He checked the battery. A few more cracks had appeared in the casing. He doubted it would hold for much longer. "Get some more plastic from the pack."

Adam obeyed without a word. Once he was gone, Atticus leaned in further, looking for any other origin for the smoke. Some crossed wires or maybe something to do with the many hoses running through this overly complicated box of environmental assassination. He didn't know much, but he doubted a battery let off that much smoke. Maybe he should have dumped only Jasper, and the mutt.

He heard a door open, then slam a few seconds later. Adam didn't return. A full minute went by. How long did it take to grab some plastic? He'd better be cutting it.

The wheels spun, once, twice, squealing, then the car was gone. The hood slammed against the back of Atticus' head. Blinding pain shot down the stalk of his neck but he retained the mind to roll when his body slumped. The machetes blade clanged on the stone where his head had lain as the car reared back like a spooked horse. His forehead scuffed a stone upon impact. Dust flew into his mouth as he cried out, rolling off the road and into the bush before he was mashed into the roadside. 

He scrambled to his knees in time to see the reversing car swerve, swing around sharply and disappear in a cloud of dust.

-Survivor Count: One.


	7. Chapter Six

“So... where to?” Adam flinched, his grip around the steering wheel corpse white. The car moved as fast as he dared down the deserted dirt road, a gentle roll for fear of damaging the battered engine any further.

“Back the way we came,” Paige ordered, her voice steadier then the hand pressing the pistol to his temple. She’d never held someone at gun point. The last time she’d held a gun was her shooting lessons at the Boarding school, and they’d given up on her when she missed the target and put a hole through the Head Masters hanging hat through his window. She’d never gotten in trouble for it. She also never saw that instructor again. But Adam didn’t need to know any of that, or he already did from the rumours that spread around the Boarding School that Paige had the instructor shipped off to South Carolina for her failing grade.

Adam only needed to know where to drive.

“Why didn’t you just take the gun and drive off yourself?” Adam asked carefully, staring ahead unblinking.

“I don’t know how to drive.”

The car trundled beneath the trees and along the road in silence, their pace infuriatingly slow as the old clunker belched clouds of black smoke every half mile. Not even a gun to the head could get Adam to step it up. After twenty minutes Paige cocked her elbow to rest against the back of his seat, then after another twenty she lowered the pistol to her lap, arm lead and aching, nozzle pointed at Adam’s stomach. He flinched again as she set it down, unaware the safety was firmly on, had never actually been removed. He’d leaned his head into the trunk to look for the pack, thinking his pistol still tucked down the back of his pants until he felt the barrel of the firmly locked weapon press cold and dead between his eyes. Paige wasn’t actually a hundred percent sure it was loaded. Obviously neither was Adam. Conversation was kept limited when attempted. A slight twitch of the pistol made it easy to keep Adam focused, his concentration on the road and not on trying to distract her.

Before her dad went missing Saturday’s were spent on day trips with him and her mom, Ella too, to parks, museums, the movies, the zoo. The zoo was the family favourite. Each time they went there was a new favourite animal for Paige to gawk at. She remembered the journey to get there feeling like hours, cooped up in the back of the car, and the journeys home whipping by in minutes as she held a stuffed teddy or clutched new figurine, mentally deciding where it would place in her collection - pack animals together? By habitat? Carnivors with carnivors? This moment in the front seat of the rolling Volkswagen Golf Hatchback was a morbid embrace of the two. Fretting over carnivors of an entirely more savage nature dragged the seconds by like thick honey spilled from the table, bombarding her with nothing but time to think of all the horrible things that could have happened to Jasper, Travis and Cooper alone on the side of the road.

She pressed her forehead to the window in an attempt to cool the throbbing panic building in her chest, willing herself not to burst into tears. Vaguely, some detached part of her memory pointed out that she’d done the same thing right before her and Adam were almost ripped to shreds, in a much sturdier vehicle.

She told herself to shut up and focus on looking.

Adam slowed the car beside the rise and twisted tree it was once wrecked under. Paige scrambled with her seatbelt, leaping from the car. What she dreaded to find eclipsed any concern with what Adam might do with the car.

“Jasper!” she called out. “Travis!”

“Quiet!” Adam hissed, running over and grabbing her shoulders. His head whipped side to side, his grip so rigid if she slipped free his fingers would remain clawed over the ghost of her shoulders. When nothing but winds stirred the leaves and the grass swayed without any monsters bursting from the brush, Adam relaxed his hold and stepped back. Breath rushed in and out of his thin chest, his eyes avoiding hers until the pale colour returned to his cheeks. Calmed, he began to walk around the area, carefully at first, then more purposefully. And to Paige’s great surprise he began whistling, several sharp notes.

He caught her staring. “The dog will hear us before they do.”

Paige joined him, calling as loudly as she dared. She searched the bushes and as far into the sparse spattering of trees she could brave, always keeping the idle car in her sights. Adam searched further down the road, calling for Cooper and the boys until he was gone from her sight. Without him, his footsteps crunching the grass or his voice carying across the overgrown fields, Paige realised the heavy cloak of silence around her. It hadn’t weighed on her those weeks she’d travelled alone. She’d felt no drag in her chest when she’d had nobody back in the Boarding School. But the absence of Jasper’s excited talk about Feral conspiracies, and Travis’ laughter like the warm glow of a single cande in the dark, left a deep ache in her chest. Had it really been that long since she’d heard genuine laughter? Could you even miss something like that, and so soon after getting it back, barely enough time to memorise how their chatter and chuckles melded together?

When Adam returned he found her pacing beside the car. He moved to the driver’s side door with determined urgency.

Any hope she felt at his fast return died at the grim look in his eyes, mouth prepared to give bad news. “We didn’t see them on the way down here so they must have gone further up road,” Page said as he approached the car.

“Or they’re already dead,” Adam muttered, yanking the drivers door open.

“They’re not dead!” He ignored her as he got in the car. “They must have gone up road, it’s the only way they’d choose.”

“How could you know that?” Adam asked, squinting up at her from his seated position.

“Cause it’s the safest way to go and most likely to have shelter!” Paige irritably explained, the south in her upbringing cutting her accent thicker the more upset she got. “You’re wastin’ time they don’ have. We need to get movin’ before somethin’ happens to ‘em.”

“And what do we do if that’s already happened? Or if it happens when we find them? What can we do about it then?” Adam argued, shaking his head at her. “I’ll tell you. Nothing, because we can’t. But if we head back now, and don’t die, maybe Atticus won’t kill us, or just me, since he actually needs you alive.”

Adam slammed the driver’s door on her rebuke and went to start the car. His fingers slipped over the ignition port. He ducked below the wheel, muttering as he pawed for the missing keys.

Paige leaned through the open window when he resurfaced, keys dangling from her fingers.

“Do I have to walk ‘til I find ‘em, or do I leave you beside the road as well?”

Adam’s inaugurating glare was flat and without any flare in the eyebrow or curling sneer, his naturally placid face holding all the ferocity of hungover Tweetybird. He sighed in defeat, gesturing for her to get in the car with a frustrated ungainly arm swing. Paige got in, made a show of pulling the pistol out from her jeans and checking it before buckling up, then handed him the keys. The silence weighed under the wail of the ignition being spurred back to life. Adam guided them down the road through slit eyes, top lip twisted into an anxious grimace. Paige wondered what Adam’s fear spiked harder at: running into trouble when they found Jasper and Travis, or the inevitable regrouping with Atticus.

The trees became fewer and father between the further they travelled down road, until barely one stripped, gnarled trunk punctuated the road mile by mile like malnurished question marks. Climbing and cresting a low, browning hill, the engine wheezed its protest like a fifty year old smoker forced onto a treadmill. A gas station came easily into sight down the stretch of road, lonely in the plains like the last onion ring everyone was too afraid of being called greedy to take. The scorching sun cast a creeping shadow across the bleached, cracked pavement, the air shimmering with heat outside cool forks of long shade.

“There!” Paige pointed to the station across the dashboard despite the fact Adam was already coasting them downhill. He pulled into the shade of the gas station and put on the hand-break. He started to say something, but Paige was out of the car, not hearing him as he called after her.

Past the station, a fleet of trucks dominated the lot. Wheels gone, parts stripped like an episode of Chop Shop, the skeletal giants standing so long the asphalt was darker where the truck bodies blocked it from the bleaching reach of the sun.

Gas pumps paired in twos lined the station, metal shells stained with corrosion, sixteen in total, four torn up in the pursuit of supplies. There’d been nothing clean about the extraction, the pale skin of concrete bruised by stains of wasted fuel and almost a decade of plains detritis lay strewn overtop. Tracked through the grime and heading into the station were a set of large paw prints.

“Cooper!” Paige yelled, running for the station door. “Cooper! Come here!”

“Paige, stop!”

Paige went to open the door. It smashed her outstretched hands, ripped from its hinges, the metal screeching as a snarling Feral pushed back on the door and burst through from inside.

“Drop, Paige! Drop!”

Terror blind, stripped of comprehensive thought, Paige let go of her limbs and collapsed to her knees. A metal pole swung over her from behind. It cracked against the Feral’s misshapen head and burst, blood splattering the side of her face. The beast, a Carrier that had once been a working German Sheppard wearing a stained red bandana, crumpled to the floor, legs and ears twitching while a steady whine wheezed through the shattered muzzle. Adam vaulted a stunned Paige, landing near the damned mutt, and smashed the pipe on its head over and over until the Feral twitched no more. He stumbled back, dropping the blood drenched bent pole and grabbed Paige. His eyes raced over her, checking every inch of exposed skin.

She swatted his hands when he tried to check her for bites. “I’m fine,” she insisted. “Jasper and Travis could be in trouble. We need to-”

Claws skittered tile floor. Another door banged at the back of the station and four Carriers thundered towards them. A Roamer brought up the rear, lurching across the room, clawed hands tearing at its head as it screamed the agonised cries of a skull collapsing and reshaping, shattering at the nose, splitting the jaw, nasal cavity reshaping into a muzzle and deadly fangs. A ripped plaid shirt hung limp off its torso and a pair of navy pants were a thread away from dissolving around crooked legs. Paige could see a nametag sewn into the shirt, but she couldn’t read the name. She imagined something like Gus, and that he’d owned the station and raised those dogs from pups in another life.

Paige’s feet propelled her backwards before she could think, and she would have tripped on the fallen door had Adam not pulled her away.

Gus the Roamer gave chase, out the door of the station and across the lot, the Carriers shrieking at his heels.

Adam reached the car, throwing open the back door as Paige dived in, scrambling to the far side, pulling at Adam’s shoulders as he barrelled in after her.

“Get the gun!” Adam screamed as the first Carrier slammed against the rear left window. Spider web cracks split the glass, clawing further as the rest of the pack reached the car.

Paige clambered over the hand break, her screams of terror deafened by the Roamer crashing onto the roof. The car shook, her hand slipped, and she tumbled into the space between the driver’s seat and the wheel. Peddles punched her side, the blinker tried to jam her in the eye. She curled into the space, breaths gasping, hands shaking as she pressed them to her eyes so hard she saw stars instead of blood. She picked sight over sound and regretted it immediately. Uncovered, her ears couldn’t block out the Feral’s screams, Adam’s shouting, the Carrier’s howls. How could they survive the Humvee slaughter just to die in a gas station trapped in a Volkswagen Golf Hatchback?

“The gun!” Adam shouted the same time the sun roof shattered.

Paige launched from hiding, diving across the hand break for the pistol laying on the front seat. Claws slashed the air, the Roamer shrieking as it fought to break through the sun roof. Adam pressed his body as far as he could into the back seat. The Roamer forced its way through cracked glass, its claws slicing air inches from Adam's chest no matter how tightly he hunched his shoulders and pulled it in. The glass slit the Roamer’s raging red skin, fat drops of blood raining across the back seat and Adam's trembling torso. She threw him the gun, whacking him in the chest. His jerk of surprise, bounced the gun to the floor. Adam’s arm followed, eyes never leaving the sunroof as he lifted the pistol. Two blasts of thunder filled the car as the Roamer’s snarling, bleeding face smashed through the last of the sun roof.

Realization of the Roamer’s faded screams, and the fact she wasn’t dead, drifted lethargically through Paige after the second pop of gunfire stopped ringing in her ears. Adam lay across the back seat, bloody though none his own, and breathing through the frantic rise and fall of his chest.

"Are you alive?” he asked, a little loud.

"Alive,” Paige groaned, the pain in her back and side flooding in now that she had a breath left to feel it. “Atticus won’t kill you.”

Adam pulled himself up, not daring to rise within reach of the sun roof, sliding onto his stomach to sneak a look out the window. “He will... If they don’t beat him to it.”

Paige moved as carefully as she dared to the window to sneak her own peek. Carriers prowled the car, hunched over as they sniffed at the bleeding corpse of the Roamer. Each thick pump of blood from the hole where its right eye used to be oozed slower than the last, the rest of it spilling like opened floodgates from the gaping wound obliterating half its neck. Vultures stalking a dying antelope never circled so hungrily. The Carriers barked, yipped and shrieked. They snapped at each other. They pounced on members of the pack who wandered too close to the car, fearing losing their chance at the kill. But none tried to rush the car. They were waiting. Biding their time.

Ice trickled through Paige’s veins, a river in deep winter freezing the quick flight of adrenaline she mistook for fear. Something so sudden and paralysing now brittle in the face of the drooling, patient maws of monsters that shared her world. Waiting. Prowling.

It pulled forth every piece of horror Paige didn’t know could be felt.

The scent of the dead Roamer did nothing to stir their lust. But the scent of live blood, a scratch from a splintery fence post would be enough, sent them into frenzies unmatched by anything capable of conscious thought. Pain wouldn't exist as they crushed through those windows, the glass stabbing like a thousand knives, puncturing their eyeballs, ripping their muzzles to shreds. Her and Adam would be devoured before Adam could get off a shot.

"Can we make it out?” she asked, not looking away from the window.

The gun clicked from the back seat followed by a defeated sigh. "Depends. How fast can you run?"

“How fast can you?”

He snorted, and the amused but mostly derogatory sound brought out a burst of emotion in Paige's chest. The last thing she would ever do was make someone laugh. She could go on that. The only thing better would be... well, not dying.

Adam shifted as he locked the ammo clip back into the gun. The movement caught the Carrier’s attention. One ran at the side of the car, hurling itself at the window, barking furiously. Adam leapt back, gun levelling jerkily at the window.

"Don’t!”

Fighting to collect his nerves, Adam lowered the gun. His fingers trembled, the gun jittering uncontrollably atop his thigh. Bored, the Carrier skulked away, resuming the prowl, but it took another few minutes for Adam to calm down.

"Ca-can you start the car?” he managed to stammer. The Carrier’s eyes never left his, a bestial understanding, a claim laid bare.

Paige slithered onto the driver’s seat and tried the key. From the first sputter the Carrier’s shrieks reignited, forming as a pack at the front of the car, barking as Paige begged the engine to turn. She tried over and over, pressed different peddles, even tried listening to Adam’s frenzied instructions on what to do with a stick shift, but he was too hysterical to make any sense. She gave up when the engine let out a sinking crunch, followed bybblack smoke drifting from under the hood. The Carrier’s backed away, whining uneasily as the smoke engulfed them. She moved to the window to get a better look, and screamed as one leaped though the black at her. Retreating back into her hiding spot under the consol, she curled up and let the tears she’d been fighting back fall.

“We’re going to die.” Adam’s voice trembled. They were going to die, in the back of the car, thanks to her failed rescue attempt and because she couldn’t pop a stupid clutch. He glanced at her and in his eyes she saw despair, a failure from somewhere in him she wished she’d had time to learn about. Was there something to his sticking with Atticus he was hoping would work out? A plan? A dream? She’d never know.

Sensing their hopelessness, the stink of their fear drawing them in, the Carrier’s began their advance.

“Hey, you dumbasses alive in there?”

Paige’s head hit the steering wheel she threw it back so fast, yet she barely felt the stinging thwack. Her wide eyes met Adam’s, confirming she hadn’t imagined the words.

“Was that...”

“Yeah yeah, it’s a miracle. Cosy in there?” Jasper’s voice mocked, coming from the air.

Adam searched the windows, but there was no hint of anyone nearby beside the Carriers. He looked at Paige, utterly lost, his voice barely a squeak. “Can he hear us?”

Only because she was listening did Paige hear a muffled crackle before Jasper’s voice sparked back up. “Check the trunk, kiddies.”

She half climbed onto the front seat, elbows propped on the ratty fabric as Adam unlatched the back seat from the frame, folding it over, and gave a cry of relief as he hauled Jasper’s bulking pack from the trunk. The chaos made Paige forget Atticus had thrown it in there, but for once she found herself blessing his blind self-centredness. Searching through it haphazardly for the source of Jasper’s voice, in his excitement Adam dumped half the contents of the pack over the back seat. Packs of dehydrated food, so many they spilled over the seat and onto the floor, bottles of water, tins of preserves, sticks for fires, matches, a first aid kit, and even a few books came tumbling out. Road maps, train tracks, scribbled back road routes and even bus schedules came next; more maps than Paige could read in a year, if she could read a map.

Adam shuffled through it all, shifting the papers aside, folding up the large map and stuffing it into his pants, pocketing the matches as well. He reached deep into the pack and began pulling out clothes next, shirts, pants, jackets, jerking his hand back when he pulled out a pair of tighty-whities and throwing them back into the trunk. Paige began to dig as well, clawing her way through the mountain of clothing. No wonder his legs shake so much, she thought as she grabbed another shirt, dark grey with a cartoon blond woman riding a pudgy yellow dragon. Across the bottom was printed ‘Mother of Dragons’ in old style script.

“Hey, grab that, it’s my favourite shirt!” came Jasper’s voice, followed by a light click, click, beep.

Adam dived for the noise, pushing apart the clothing, thrusting his hand deep into the pile. He dug for a few moments, his face twisting, and Paige didn’t want to think about what he might be touching in there, until he pulled his arm back out, clutching a thick, brick shaped walk-talkie.

Their movement disturbed the Carrier’s, uneasy whining filling the lot as purpose doubled their prowling. It seemed like more had come. They wouldn’t wait much longer.

“Jasper? Jasper!” Adam shouted into the walkie.

“Did you guys save my shirt?”

“Don’t save it, it’s a stupid shirt!” Travis’ voice called from somewhere in the background.

Paige could only laugh in relief, too weary and stretched thin, and too happy they were both alive to care.

“Where are you?” Adam asked into the Walkie, looking around the cramped interior of the car like he was trying to seek out a ghost. “Can you see us?”

“Yep, and I see dead people,” Jasper gulped and his voice dropped, whisper faint. “That gunshot brought the masses, numb nuts. Bad news for you guys.”

Adam scowled at the walkie.

“Is there good news?” Paige asked. The words caught in her throat as the Feral’s stalked closer to the car. A Carrier sniffed at the last dregs of smoke before hopping onto the hood. Claws left jagged dents in the metal.

“No.”

“Helpful,” Adam muttered.

“Jasper,” Paige cut in before any arguments could bloom and more Feral’s gather from the noise. “I’m starting to worry that you don’t have a plan.”

“If you could see the situation from here you’d be having a major freak out.” She wanted to take that radio and throw it out the window. “But I have an idea. Start the car.”

“We tried that,” Adam said before Paige could. “Can’t turn it over.”

“That’s what I’m hoping for.” Adam shot Paige a confused look, one she shared. He did know they were about to die, didn’t he? Across the radio and stretching silence, Jasper sighed. “Try or die, guys. I’m not the one stuck in the car.”

Hard to argue with that logic. She felt Adam watching as her hand slid towards the ignition. Whatever Jasper was planning had better be good enough to work the first time. Or hope the inevitable engine explosion be enough to end this hell quickly.

“Wait!” Paige’s hand jerked back so hard at Jasper’s shout she nearly put it through the window. She gripped the wheel instead as she waited for her heart to slow down. “Grab what you can from my pack. All you can carry. Leave anything not essential.”

Why bring anything that could be non-essential in the first place?

Adam dove in, going for the dehydrated food packets first and stuffing all he could into his pockets, donning a black hoodie clearly packed for Travis to give him more pockets, then shoving them down the back of his pants when he ran out of room. Paige went for the water bottles, piling them into her satchel, then stacking the tins of preserves beside them. On top she laid out the first aid kit, wrapped in a shirt to keep it safe. As she reached for another piece of clothing she felt something poke her arm. Adam, cheeks scarlet, stared resolutely away from her as he held a small blue packet of tampons out to her.

“Jasper!” Paige shrieked. Barks answered her from outside the car.

“W-we knew we were coming to get a girl!” Jasper stammered in defence across the radio.

Though her government issued birth-control implant prevented their need, at least for another three years until it would need to be replaced, Paige snatched the tampons from Adam and tucked them into her pack, stuffing them under the rations before pressing a book about basic survival skills from Jasper’s stash on top to keep it all in place. Her shoulders would ache from carrying the weight, though she welcome it if they made it out of this alive.

Pockets and pants filled, Adam grabbed a pair of long black combat pants and tied them around his waist, finishing his foraging with a dark blue baseball cap screwed tightly on his head. He nodded to Paige, looking about as ready as she felt as she moved back to the driver’s seat and turned the key.

The car shrieked, chuck-chuck-chucking as black smoke wept from the hood.Feral’s spit and howled, clamouring close to the car at the disturbance, backing away as choking clouds filled the air. The Carrier’s claws left scores across the hood as it scrambled away. Paige searched before losing sight of the outside world completely, and across the gas station lot, before the black smoke engulfed them, she glimpsed a crouched shape shift in the cabin of one of the stripped, abandoned trucks.

“Keep going!” Jasper pleaded, his voice breaking along the radio inside the truck’s cabin.

Paige forced the key as far round in the ignition as it would go and crushed the gas pedal to the floor. The engine screamed for release, smoke billowing across the lot as the car juddered, scraping across the lot like a body jerks in death.Carrier’s barks yipped shrilly between the cars shrieks, sharp yowls that grew fainter as the acrid smoke burned their overdevelped snouts.

“Okay,” Jasper’s voice sounded fervently while the car grew hotter. The engine blazed. Sweat poured down Paige’s neck. “Now get out the car and run.”

“That’s your idea?” Adam choked.

“Yes. Get out the car and run for the trucks!”

Adam shook his head at the Walkie. “No! No way! We’ll die! No, we'll be lucky if we die!"

“There isn’t another way,” Paige said, scooting over the hand break and into the back seat. Snatching one of Adam’s flailing hands frim the air, she squeezed it tight until he looked at her. “Jasper’s got this. We’re going to be ok.”

“Have you looked outside?” he cried, free hand gesturing violently to the blackened windows. “There’s monsters out there! Bigger than us! Faster than us! They'll eat us alive! We'll... Oh god we'll become like-”

Paige slapped him. No. A slap was a gentle thing impacting more drama than the mind numbing pain of the open palmed, one of her fingers sliding across the soft goo of his eye, blow she delievered to the side of his face. Their cries filled the car, Adam slipping off the seat from the shock and force of the blow, Paige craddling her stinging pink hand to her chest as she glared down at him. "If you haven’t noticed, there’s been monsters outside our doors for a long time. They’ve banged and they’ve roared and you’ve hidden under the bed with your hands over your ears. We can’t keep waiting it out. It’s the monsters who belong under the bed, Adam, not us. We can’t wait this one out. We have to run. Now.” Adam blinked up at her. A welt rivelling a goose egg puckered the rise of his cheekbone, the eye above red and welling clear tears. She'd silenced his blubbering though his bottom lip still wobbled. Paige squeezed his hand again. This time he remained still, watching her. “We run hard and only regret not running harder. Wipe your eyes.”

Adam nodded.

She let go of his hand, reaching for the door handle. Slick from sweat, the metal collar squeezed around her neck, sensing her vitals spiking and falling like crazy. The monitor for whatever Guard watching her had to be shaming even the most ambitious EDM light shows. She checked Adam. His legs were curled and ready to spring.

They burst from the carinto the smoke. Her eyesSmokeIt burned her eyes and she made the mistake of gasping. Smoke seared her throat so badly she was sure she coughed up her trachea. She ran for where she remembered the trucks being, blind from crying soot, and hopinged Adam was close to her. A shape surfaced from the black on her right, claws shearing the smoke like silk that would have hooked her stomach and split her from sternum to belly, had a gunshot not boomed, a bullet shredding through fur and skin. The paw exploded, spattering across her chest and neck. She looked up through the smoke. Had they found a rifle in the truck? Then behind her, and saw Adam checkingpulling the chamber back on the pistol as he ran at her heels, an empty casing popping out and tinkling to the ground.

TheAll at once the smoke thinned all at once and fresh air flooded Paige’s scorched senses. Silhouettes of trucks became fuller, bigger, and then one emerged out of the gloomsmoke, looming like a metal mountain peak of the service station, another parked next to it, and another, and another, peaks of the service station. She headed for Jasper’s truck, squeezing between the hoods of two parked close together and towards the ladder attached to the side. The cabin door flew open before she could climb, Jasper leaping down into the gap. Adamscreamed and levelled his gun to Jasper’s chest with a startled shriek.

"Whoa! No!” Jasper cried, flinging his hands while executing the worlds most ungainly backwards bendup. “Not dead! Still alive! Still alive!”

"Not if you keeping jumping out of nowhere,” Adam wheezed in distress, the hand holding the gun pressed to his forehead. He looked two minutes away from begging the Feral’s to make it quick and end this hellish day.

"Noted.” Jasper turned, slipping along the length of the trucks, gesturing for them to follow as he dipped behind the back wheels.

Sprinting to keep up with Jasper's giraffeian strides, the three of them dipped and weaved between the trucks. Jasper’s eyes were to the sky, searching for something, before his head snapped sideways and he turned sharply. Paige skidded across the stone as she grabbed a trucks rigging and swung around to follow. Travis waved from atop a half destroyed truck, the cabin and wheels stripped to nothing so that only the shell of a rotting green shipping container remained on the skeleton of a bunk and hitch back. Jasper found the ladder and ushered Paige up first, letting Adam go second. He brought up the rear, hands skimming over the ladder so quickly it left metal whispers in air otherwise filled with screams and yowls.

Her greeting was a shaggy, yellow head and steaming breath. Cooper licked at her face until Travis pulled him back by his scruff with one hand and hauled Paige onto the roof with the other. He reached for Adam next, grinning at the hysteric boy. "Nice shootin’, Eastwood!” Adam trembled on the shipping container roof, silent and blank faced. When Cooper tugged towards him Travis let the dog go rub his head against Adam’s until the boy showed that was still alive. “You caught that Carrier in the paw, while you was runnin!”

Adam’s trembling was now so bad that Paige couldn’t tell if he nodded at Travis’s praise or it was the violent spasm of his body. "I... I was aiming at its h-head."

"Ah... that shot sucked."

That wrestled a weak smile from Adam, free hand buried in Coopers scruff.

Travis delicately pried the gun from Adam’s shaking fingers. He checked the clip. “Four tries,” she heard him murmur to himself as he snapped it back into place.

Jasper climbed onto the roof of the container and took her arm, motioning for Adam to bring Cooper and follow. Giant holes littered the green corroded metal of the shipping container with jagged, rust dusted edges.

Paige checked over her shoulder.Travis leaned over the edge of the container, his knee up and bracing the arm holding the gun. He aimed at the car across the lot, surrounded by furious swirling smoke as the Feral’s thrashed at the car, their over-heightened senses as burned and blinded by the smoke as hers had been. He squeezed the trigger, the air cracked, and the sharp trill of metal bounced off metal. Travis cursed and lined up again.

"Paige.” Jasper tugged at her sleeve. Adam had already disappeared through the corroded hole, Cooper curled up with him in the container. She slipped in beside them, tucking herself against the wall so Jasper could slide in. Shallow puddles of green, speckled water soaked through her stained pant legs, the inside of the shipping container smelling like an abandoned swimming pool.

"What’s Travis doing?” Adam whispered, but it sounded like a shout in the container, the outside world drawn away like the quiet of a tomb.

Jasper shrugged. “He had the idea. Getting you out the car was up to me. He said he would take care of the rest.”

Adam gaped. “And what will getting us trapped in here acompli-”

Outside the gun popped, and the world exploded.

\- Survivor Count: Four


	8. Chapter Seven

“Was his plan supposed to explode?”

Jasper shakily pushed himself to sitting. He looked at Adam, his face a sheet of snow, then at Paige. Without warning he snapped to his feet and ran for the holes. Spindly legs kicked as he hauled himself out and disappeared without a word. Cooper barked and jumped at the hole until Adam slapped his hands over the dogs mouth. But no howls answered, nore barks or screams or yowls. The air was dead in and outside the shipping container.

Adam let Cooper’s muzzle go, and when the dog resumed jumping and yowling desperately at the roof, he hoisted him up and out the hole Jasper disappeared through. He looked to Paige next with hands readily cupped, the question in his eyes. Paige stared at the stale water, seeking his grey and speckled with dead flies reflection there instead of the reality. Was she ready for what awaited her? Could she bare what she might see? The claustraphobia of the moment tightened its grip on her heart. For the first time she realised since holding Adam up, stealing the car, finding the station, getting trapped, running from the Feral’s and somehow finding them, beyonddread or fear spining gore filled scenarios around her mind, that she may have to face one of her new friends not being there when it was all over.

"What are them two still doin’ down there?” drawled a honey slicked voice.

"Engaging in a little thank-god-we're-alive nookie?"

Jasper’s head blocked the sun. Beside him a soot covered face peered down, pink lines appearing in the wrinkles left around the eyes as his lips stretched, grinning down at them with teeth so white in his blackened face they sparkled like pure pearls. Blond hair, also streaked with soot, was wind shocked so badly it slicked all the way back like a 1950’s greaser. Cooper pushed his way under his arm, the dog licking at his dirty face, but he barely seemed to notice the lolling tongue as it smudged the grime across cheek and chin.

“Travis,” Paige whispered on a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. Adam let out something between a wheeze and a laugh, his voice hoarse fromsmoke. Wasting no time, Paigeleapt for the hole in the roof, her legs kicking wildly until Adam wrapped his arms around her thighs and hoisted her up. Jasper and Travis could hardly grab hold of her arms to help as she scrabbled onto the roof. Decorum be damned, she leaped on Travis, hugging him as tightly as she’d hugged anyone in years.

You never know when you’ll see someone for the last time, Ella had said, the last time Paige talked to her.

"Nice to see we were missed.” His chuckle warmed her ears as he returned her hug, giant paw hands spanning her entire back.

"You more than me, apparently,” Jasper said with no bitterness, only an eased smile and a hand on his buddie's shoulder.

"Why stick your necks out for us?” Adam perched on the container, looking awkward and out of place next to the huddle of people wrapped in each other. He had a hand on Cooper’s back, and what measly colour he possessed had returned to his face. “We left you to die.”

"I didn’t,” Paige pointed out with a raised finger.

Jasper snorted, sharing a look with Travis. The giant shrugged his shoulders, easing back enough from Paige to lean on his palms, though not so far her hand could no longer rest against his knee, grinning a bright starlight smile through sooty cheeks. Jasper looked back at Adam, shrugging his much ganglier shoulders. “Call it foolish, naive hope, but if we were ever up shit creek, again.” He shot Adam a pointed look. “somebody might do the same for us.”

"Call us optimists,” Travis said, still grinning. He gave Paige's hand two short squeezes as he drew back, drawing with it an unexpected comfort in her chest, a comfort she didn't realise she'd been in need of. He'd been the one who almost died, this should have come around differently and come from her. But he only smiled when she tried to squeeze back, and ruffled Cooper's ears. 

One by one, offering hands down, they climbed from the container, Travis taking the last turn with Cooper slung across his shoulders. The smoking remains of the gas station disappeared momentarily behind trucks, windscreens destroyed in the explosion, glass littering the asphalt. The closer they crept to the lot, the more the trucks lost their shape. First the busted windshields, then their metal frames bent like they’d been sat on by a giant, then crushed by its fist when the truck proved to be an uncomfortable seat. The last line barely looked like trucks at all.Melted beyond recognition, their radiators reduced to puddles on the ground, frames dissolving through the crushed windshields and burning leather seats letting off a smell so sour it curdled the air.

The lot couldn’t be called worse, or called better, because there was nothing there to name besides a smoking black crater in the cracked blackened ground. The car was gone, blown to nothing but a rumpled piece of frame, and maybe a part of a door. Flecks of burning paper, smouldering clothes and whatever else from the backpack hadn't been blasted into oblivion pocketed the ground, the group picking their way around the piles of debris until Travis gave up and began stomping them out when they came to them. Along the lot, where gas pumps once stood tall in their lines of two were metal stumps surrounded by puddles of flames.

"Oh... Okay, yeah,” Jasper reflected as he looked upon the obliterated gas pumps, then at the destruction surrounding them. “That was lucky.”

Paige had to agree, though she wondered how their actual plan would have worked without the left over gasoline under the station. She doubted the car alone would have been capable of making the Feral’s vanish in a puff of smoke - well, ash.

Cooper sniffed around charred mounds, undistinguishable beside the bones that hadn’t quite turned all the way to dust. Travis lumbered across the lot after his dog, avoiding the piles as much as he could. “Guys,” he called when he reached the mound Cooper was sniffing, toeing at it apprehensively.

Larger than the rest, stretching longer, skin raw leather and rippled in red waves like a lobsters shell so that the hunch of shoulders within the pile was the only thing left that resembled shape at all. Paige wondered if Gus the Gas Station man had ever looked so small in life, before this life. Before everything went wrong. Had he seemed as big as he did when he nearly gutted her, or had he always been as small as he looked now, as shrivelled and curled as an overcooked piece of bacon?

Cooper sniffed at the body, lips curling as he shied back. Travis patted his leg and his dog heeled, staring at the body warily.

“Crispy,” Travis finally voiced the groups reluctant consensus.

“Extra crispy,” Jasper amended, the two boys sharing amused, grimace bordered snorts and head shakes.

“Burnt Ends,” Adam mumbled, receiving surprised looks from Jasper and Travis. He shrugged, trying to seem indifferent even as he glanced shamefully at the dead body.

“Can you please stop talking about food?” Paige begged queasily, though she was ashamed to admit to herself that it was because she hadn’t eaten a real barbeque in years. Cravings for her dads Cajun Spiced Ribs caused saliva to build in her mouth as she looked at the protruding spears of what used to be Gus’s actual ribs. She swallowed, and when the others looked over, choked out a halfhearted, “He was a human being.”

Travis had the decency to look a little sorry. “Our bad. Just messin’.” He turned to Adam. “Shame we can’t get a look at your handy work."

No one roused at the joke.

"Just... gone,” Jasper murmured, looking at the piles of burning debris around them. “All in the blink of an eye.”

"You ain’t kiddin'." Travis ruffled his soot streaked hair, hand coming away black.

Paige put her hand on Jasper’s arm. “It is sad, Jasper. People are getting infected every day. But we can’t let it take over. We won't let it take our lives from us. We're going to fight for it.”

Jasper shook his head. “Fighting isn’t going to change a thing,” he said bitterly. “Where am I going to find another shirt like my old one?”

Paige’s hand dropped from his arm. Adam glared at him. Travis shook his head at his best friend. “That’s your first thought?” Adam admonished. “Someone died.”

"He’s been dead at least three months. I lost my shirt today,” Jasper defended, his voice wobbling so much it may as well have been a family member who blew up in the car. His eyes darted up past Paige’s shoulder and all at once his hurt expression dropped into one of horror. He backed up a step, going pale. “Oh, shit.”

Travis had the gun drawn before Paige finished turning to see what spooked Jasper. Was it a Feral? Had Gus’s pack been bigger than they’d known and the rest were on their way?

Atticus Grace stalked onto the lot, shoulders hunched and deiving his frothing bulk forwards, hands clenching into fists and unclenching. The closer he got, the more purple with rage his face became, and the bigger the vein popping out the side of his neck seemed as he headed straight for Paige. She’d never been looked at with so much fury, like every little thing wrong with the world would be sorted if she and someone with the inclination to push were arguing at the cliff side. His hand raised. Paige flinched, closing her eyes to the furious backhand. She stumbled as Atticus knocked against her arm, shoving her out of the way and storming up to Adam.

Surely Adam wouldn’t be beaten for being taken hostage? Paige’s feet moved her towards them, not sure how she could stop him as Atticus reached Adam and grabbed him by the arms.

"Are you okay?” His eyes searched Adam over. Adam gaped at him, too stunned to answer. Atticus gripped him tighter, words coming harsher and more forceful. “Did you get bitten?”

Paige watched, staggered by what she was seeing. If Gus the barbequed Feral could stand up and tell them his name used to be François she’d still be more surprised. Truly, the dead coming back to life was more believable to her than Atticus worrying over any of them. He’d stripped her, pointed a gun to her chest and let killers run their hands across her body with rape and murder on all their minds. He’d left Jasper and Travis to die. The memory of his lips on hers, his tongue forced into her mouth, still made it impossible to look at him without shuddering.

"N-no. I’m okay,” Adam sputtered. He almost keeled over when Atticus shoved him roughly, fist following to deal a heavy smack to the shaken boys chest, and Paige’s curiosity of Atticus having a sliver of civility vanished.

"You let her take your gun? You let an unarmed girl take your fucking gun! How stupid do you have to be to let her take it, or did she distract you with a flash of tits?” he snapped. Both Adam and Paige blushed furiously. Fired up to defend herself Paige opened her mouth, stopping only at the realisation she'd be throwing Adam under the bus. It didn't matter. Atticus was already moving his fury through the group. He looked at Travis so fiercely that the blond boy held the gun out to him without prompt. Atticus snatched it, checking the clip. “You wasted four bullets.”

"He didn’t waste anything,” Paige said when Adam didn't come to his own defense. His shoulders stooped like he was being scolded by his dad, cowering in pants stuffed with rations, shrivelling into a hoodie way too large.

Atticus turned his glare on her, slow and stiff, voice biting. “Do not speak again.” He turned back to Adam before she could reply. “You lost us the only running car we’ve found in months! Next time let her shoot you, or I will, before you give up a fucking car!”

"I blew up the car!” Paige snapped as she stepped between them. It did nothing, Atticus' dark eyes glaring through her, pinning Adam to the spot like he'd given the admission instead of her.

"Uh... if it helps, that car weren’t gonna run again anyway,” Travis said slowly, unsure if Atticus’s no speaking rule applied to him.

Atticus' head twisted on his reddening neck to glare at him. “No, that don’t help,” he hissed in mockery of Travis’s southern slur.

“Hey!” Paige snapped, ready to fight for them while pulling on her most defiant glare. “You don’t get to talk to us like th-”

"He’s right.” Adam’s voice startled her. The usually quiet boy lifted his head so he could look at Atticus’ face, taking off the black baseball cap to hold in his hands like a beggar. “I lost us the car and wasted the little bullets we had. Without my screw up, we’d be hours closer to Louisiana.” Adam looked up at Atticus, holding his eyes. Never blinking, never shying back. He wasn’t even even squinting in that premeditated flinch he couldn’t suppress in moments of confrontation. Where was that stoicism in the car? Or perhaps there was only one monster the pale slip of a boy could face? “I should have been smarter, Atticus. Better. What do you think we should do?”

“Stop wasting time, to start,” Atticus grumbled, the fight waning, satisfied that his word was once again law. “We get back on the road. Now.”

“All of us,” Paige said, forcing herself not to glare as Atticus turned on her. Adam had the right idea, and she followed his lead, even if forcing her face to stay neautral produced more twitches than a cross-stitchers fingersAdam’s flinchingeduced. “Travis, Jasper and Cooper come as well.”

“I made myself clear the first time,” Atticus said, the cold calm returning to his voice. “I said-”

“You said they could come then you broke your word.” Atticus opened his mouth to snap at her but Paige carried on. “and look where we are, further away then when we started. Like Adam said, we’d be hours on by now, but you held us up.”

His face purpled again. “You ran off with the car!”

“Because you lied!” Paige stopped herself from tipping over into uncontrollable flames of arguing, swallowing the urge to start yelling. It wasn’t easy. It seemed Atticus Grace had a talent for bringing out the worst in her. “We’re going to make a deal.”

He snorted. “I’m not making a deal with you, car thief. Shit like this doesn’t happen when you do as I say. No negotiation,” he sneered, touching the machete at his waist.

The threat was easy to ignore. “Then next chance I get, I’m running off, and we do this all over again, and again, and again, until you stop being able to catch up.”

“You didn’t hear me, Princess,” he spat, looming closer. He liked using his size. He was so close she could see the thin scar on his top lip again, and smell the sweat of a chase. He’d run for them, probably after he heard the explosion.

The others remained silent, watching.

“I heard you when you lied,” she said evenly. Time to play her card. “and I heard you when you said you needed me alive. So we’re going to make a deal, now. Jasper and Travis stay with me-”

“And Cooper,” Travis added.

Paige didn’t look away from Atticus. “-and Cooper, and I stay with you. No more running off. No more lies. No more danger.”

A muscle beneath the juncture of jaw and ear ticked as his teeth clenched. “Why should I believe you?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking that?” Paige asked, delighting inwardly when the muscle ticked again.

“And your word is so pure, Princess?” Atticus folded his arms across his chest, widening his shoulders, making himself bigger as he looked down on her.

She hated that too, how the bunching of his broad shoulders made him seem larger, how he used that word to push her buttons, somehow finding new ones after he’d so easily found and pushed them all. Well, like his size could come to his defense, Paige breathed and willed her understanding of this situation to bring confidence to hers. Despite his abismal start this man needed her in good will. The knowledge put a cementing kind of grasp on her nerves.

She held up her little finger to him. He stared at it, frowning like he couldn’t tell what it was. “You have my word.”

He didn’t take her finger in his and seal the agreement. He didn’t sneer or say no. He didn’t say anything. Paige knew better than to smile by now. She held his eye silently, waiting, until he let out a gruff noise and turned away, heading for the station. His back to her, she let her lips twitch up for a second in victory. But she was only human, and couldn’t help calling out,

"By the way,” Atticus stopped, head turning halfway to her. “They were here to protect me. Where were you?”

Disappointment and victory, and maybe a smidgen of guilt colided with only half his face visible, twisting into a sneer before he stomped towards the station. Adam followed him, hat back on his head, a tiny grin peeking out from under the brim.

Jasper paused at her side as Travis and Cooper went after Adam, long body hinging at the boney waist down to her. “One nothing, Emry,” he whispered in her ear before snapping back upright and following along.

Most of the station was still intact, stone a better hold out than metal against massive gasoline fueled explosions. The melted remains of the door Paige and the Carrier so elegantly crashed through, the purple and blue imprint of the pushbar painting her chest from collarbone to sternam, clung beleagueredly to the frame by one screw. Atticus ended the ragged metals suffering with a hard kick, decapitating it from the wall as he entered. Anything left that hadn’t been ripped to shreds or incinerated was useless. Magazines, postcards, spoiled snack foods and travelling Crossword and Sudoku books. All the liquor behind the counter was cleared out. An empty rack under the counter suggested Gus had some protection stashed away at one point, before or after the outbreak was left up to speculation. But after turning the entire station upside down all they managed to scrape together was a small empty backpack in the back room, a plaid shirt, twelve packets of very out of date chips and a packet of cigarettes that Atticus immediately pocketed.

They left the station behind and went back to the road, walking in single file; Atticus silent at the head, the back occasionally sparked by bursts of noise taking the form of conversation or Cooper running off into the grass. Sometimes Atticus would look over his shoulder, checking on Paige. She pretended not to notice every time he did, making the point to start a new conversation with Jasper and Travis each time he made the point of ignoring their existence.

Sunset had been looming as they left, deepening at their backs with every passing hour they walked. Shadows stretched across the road and disappeared into the grass. When the air began to chill with the coming night Paige, dragging herself along with over thirty hours without sleep weighing her down, felt the twinges of anxiety keeping her awake sharpen. Was there a plan to find them somewhere to sleep? One benefit of when she walked the train tracks alone in the private hours of night was when she needed to find a spot to stop, sunrise her indicator and literal guiding light, there had always been a water tower, a maintenance shed or a small station to duck under or into during the day, so long as she gave herself time to locate one and didn't stray so far from the tracks she couldn't find her way back. She had yet to sleep outside and the idea didn’t appeal, especially when she felt how cold it could get on a cloudless spring night.

She didn’t have to face her demons tonight though. A truck, much like the others left behind at the gas station, lay on its side in the grass by the road.

Atticus drew his machete, holding it out to the side in a measured gestured. “Stay put,” he ordered voice hushed in a surprising show of caution, then carried on alone. He approached the truck from a wide circle, slipping up to the side so quietly the grass didn’t rustle. He moved to the front, angling himself so he could use the cracked side mirror to check inside the cab first, giving it a thorough search after he deemed it okay to move closer, before moving his sweep to the back.

Bending fluidly to pick up a rock, he threw it inside, waiting. When no angered roar met his venture he went in. Every step was placed, no foot falling loudly or knocks to the metal from sloppy positioning or loosely holstered weapons. It was like watching a chef plate up a master piece, a painter sketch his outline on a canvas. Atticus, loathe as Paige was to commend him, could turn sweeping a perimeter into a dance, each action methodical and no glance or step out of place.

He reappeared at the mouth of the truck bay and waved them over.

No longer taken with watching the dancing master, an actual look showed the truck was prolifically vandalised; obscenities were painted across the broad white surface, some in beautiful spray painted letters, others scrawled on crudely in mud. A smudged ‘Fuck the Feral’s’ painted the shared white canvas in blood, a hand print next to it. Paige found her eye drawn to the more elaborately detailed depiction of a viscera coated set of bared fangs highlighted by a muzzle obscured by blood and shadow. No signaturehad been left to hint at the artist. If anything the omission drew out herwondering of who had the time to leave such an intricate tag in the Kansas countryside, or where they’d found the paint.

Atticus was at the roadside, darkened within the trucks growing shadow, looking at one piece of graffiti in particular as Paige rounded the back to complete her cataloguing of each masterpiece. Nothing so fancily drawn as the set of fangs, but the bold lettered message shot icicles of dread directly to her veins.

THE TREE OF LIBERTY IS WATERED BY THE BLOOD OF THE PATRIOT’S

“We stop here,” Atticus decided, eyes on the deep red words.

Paige didn’t move, not when he walked away, or he when he disappeared around the side. The second she was sure he was out of earshot she bolted for the truck. Scrubbing furiously at the words acomplished nothing, not a smudge, nor did the letters run when she tried pouring water on them. They glared down at her, red and glistening like fresh blood on the white surface. As permanent as the brand on her ribs.

Glass smashed, making her jump, a scream of frustration she'd felt building the longer those letters mocked her catching in her throat. No, they wouldn't get her again. They'd never have anything from her ever again, not even the breath it took to unleash her rage. Atticus leant across the front of the truck, breaking the windows in with his machete handle. He caught her eye for a moment, sparing a second to hold on to her, before ducking his dark head and returning to the task at hand. Had he seen her waste the supplies through the grimy windows? No. He’d be burning her out with reproach if he had. He wouldn’t waste the opportunity to leave her be with a stony, blank look.

Glass gathered in a ratty piece of cloth reminiscent to a shirt, Atticus barked for everyone to get in the back of the truck, a command even Paige was too strung out and exhausted to ignore. Behind them Atticus scattered broken glass around the truck, ending with a thorough covering of the way in before joining them in the back, pulling the hatch door until only an inch remained between it and the truck bed.

She chose her dark corner in the musty truck and huddled down, Jasper from his chosen bed at the very back dubbing the impromptu nest cosy. Grass had grown through the cracks, providing a sort of softness to the floor. An austere dinner was shared in the dark – a packet of stale chips each that rubbed Paige’s burned throat raw with each swallow, some water, and two cans of tuna shared between the five of them. Atticus refused to give any rations to Cooper, so Travis split his share with his dog. In her corner Paige ate some scoops of peanut butter off her fingers for desert, Cooper licking the tip of her pointer clean for his.

Everyone began to bunker downafter eating. Although the consensus anticipated making every hour count, Atticus deemed it his right to issue the warning they would be moving on at sun up. Anyone not ready to go would be left.

Paige used her bag as a pillow. There were no blankets to curlunder but their bodies crammed together inside of the truck added to the stifling mustiness. Soon Paige found herself warm, almost too warm with Cooper at her backas he settled down beside Travis.

But as soon as she laid her head down something jabbed into her neck. On top where she'd frantically packed it was the first aid kit, wrapped in a grey shirt. Chaos and the stress of her reverse hostage negotiations with Atticus meant she'd completely forgotten the added treasures. Unraveling the shirt, she shifted to where Jasper settled down for the night and dropped the shirt on his chest. As she got comfy again she heard a gasp of delight, followed by a groan from Travis. She pressed the grin into her bag.

But the gasps didn’t stop, coming short and pinched, like they were trying to be held back, but growing deeper as the other sounds that helped disguise them retreated. Paige lifted her head. Through the gloom she could see Jasper’s lanky frame huddled beside Travis, sound asleep, his arms curled under his head, using the shirt as a pillow. The gasps became wet sniffles, whoever was making themdesperately trying to smother them with a hand. She peered more into the dark and saw a shape huddled into the furthest corner.

Adam, shoulders shaking behind each muffled sob, was crying into his knees.

Paige didn’t know what to do. She didn’t cry. She’d stopped years ago, when after two days and near dehydration hadn’t brought her mother and father to her in D.C. She shuffled over the sleeping bodies, to where Atticus claimed his spot, hunkered down by the door, his machete resting across his leg and the rifle next to him. She couldn't be sure, not until she felt those black eyes on her. He was still awake.

"Adam’s crying,” she whispered croakily. Raw from the smoke,talking had begun to hurt a few hours back. It was too dark to see his face to know if he reacted.

“Did he kill today?” His deep voice lowered to a whisper.

Paige nodded before realising he couldn’t see her. “Yeah," then, because someone needed to be in Adam's corner. "He saved us from being pinned in the car by a Roamer... Oh, and two Carrier's that would have... He was there for me."

Sighing, shoulder’s shuffling in the gloom, he turned his head back to watching the door. “He’s okay. Needs time to get over it. Get some sleep, cause no one’s carrying you tomorrow.”

She didn’t know what she expected. Maybe some of what he let slipearlier, a glimpse of the man who only cared about knowing Adam was okay. He didn’t seem to care now.

Making sure not to disturb the others she picked her way back across the truck. Travis snored thickly, but Cooper was gone from his side. Golden fur curled beside Adam, who buried his face in Cooper’s neck before the retriever finished lying back down. His sobs seemed quieter now, though it was impossible to tell under Travis’ snoring.

Sleep wouldn’t come. Across the truck felt safe in he beginning, everyone between them awake and watching, but knowing Atticus was there put her nerves on edge. She’d seen him kill and claimed it was for her. He’d left two innocent boys to die and claimed it was for her. She hadn’t asked him to do any of that, and she couldn’t stop seeing him doing it again; to her, to Jasper, to Travis. He did as he pleased and called it protection. How was she supposed to sleep near him when those hands could turn on the rest of them if he willed it? Heart suddenly pounding, she had to look over to him, afraid he could somehow hear what she was thinking. It was hard to make out his profile, but she could see the outline of his head, looking into the back of the truck. Not at her.

He could care when he was in the dark, but it wouldn’t make the sleep come any easier for her, not when she’d seen what he could do in the light of day.

\- Survivor Count: Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To anyone reading this I would really appreciate some constructive feedback. I have no conception if I’m good at this and I really hate thinking I’m wasting all you wonderful people’s time xx


	9. Four Years Ago

Paige wished she wasn’t the only one on the bus as it trundled towards the city centre. A bus coming out filled with kids was normal. A bus going in with only one was, if believed, worse. The Boarding school in the city centre was known to be the best, but even the best fruit bearing tree produced some bad apples. You were lucky if you got to live in the City Centre. 

Paige doubted her sudden transfer had anything to do with luck.

When the virus first broke two years ago Paige, eleven at the time, had no idea everything would collapse so quickly. Apparently you could block traumatic memories from your childhood – though she guessed those processes started after your childhood ended. At thirteen, there was a long way to go. 

One impossible effort to forget was the mad scramble for order, consummating in the ascension of William Roja to what remained of the United States Presidency. 

Secretary of Environmental Protection. Before that CEO, part founder and owner of Roja Integrity Pharmaceuticals, made famous by focusing every ounce of publicity on their reputation as the highest ranking pharmaceutical company that refused to test on animals. The man who fought for the rights of the smallest mouse one day, protecting entire cities from being wiped out by a single infected rat the next. A lot of people weren’t happy. They wanted a General. A soldier. A leader familiar with death who could drag what remained of humanity from its ashes. 

It made Paige sick how badly they wanted him to fail if only to be proved right in their expectations. They wanted a man who could build them a new empire. Roja became the man who dragged their dying one back from the dust.

His first order, exceeding even the extermination protocols, was the public’s safety. He moved all citizens into their state capitals. California was so big it had to be split into two. Texas tried to go it alone, but by the end of the second year all of Texas could fit into Austin. Soldiers were assigned in fleets to protect the borders, and Roja’s Quarantine Zone initiative was ordered within months. 

But the soldiers were scattered too thinly, too many people to keep safe, too many to feed, to house, to promise they would get their share of what was left. Roja’s dedication stretched to all his people.

Dedication often held hands with sacrifice. 

Roja couldn’t build the Quarantine Zones on his own, he couldn’t gather the resources as fast as he needed them. 

Like a fallen angel, in swooped the Allied Casualty Response Division. The story in D.C told they’d been a private company operated by shady boards making back deals with anyone who could afford their services. What they used as a cover for their excursions changed from person to person: Weapons. Oil. Drugs. One rumour suggested Artificial Intelligence tech, and they’d really replaced the President with a robot they could control. No one had really heard of them (something suspected to be intentional) until they offered Roja their resources, for a price.

Fifteen states. All that remained. The walls were up within the second year, and everything except the people inside became property of the A.C.R.D. Fifteen states protected by Roja, enforced by the power of the A.C.R.D. Against all odds, Roja kept the people alive.

Paige bounced and dipped over uneven roads, worn by years of loaded humvees and patrol cars. No resources could be spared, even to fill in a pothole. The Guard held a heavy presence outside the centre. The angrier the public got the more the A.C.R.D. decided it needed policing. Ration shortages and over-crowding were ever present issues, inside and out, in every Quarantine Zone across the country. The wall around the centre only created more unrest. The people outside believed the people inside were hoarding more food. More space. Riots happened almost every month, most occasionally on the day of ration distribution. 

Paige wasn’t surprised the D.C. Quarantine Zone became two Zones in itself. President Roja spent his every waking hour protecting them, it only seemed fair he felt safe in his own city, if only part of it.

Luckily Roja possessed a better sense of hindsight than her; he would not authorize the City Centres building until every QZ had a wall to protect its citizens first. Once again putting the people before himself, not that they seemed to care. 

The bus stopped. Through the window grey stone loomed in a scuffed hastily errected ring that encompassed the City Centre. It reminded Paige, looking at it between bars strapped across the dirty bus window, of a childs sandcastle. No design or outline to its structure that an adult seeking individualism may try to impose. Once realised it could be sculpted, the child simply filled the plastic bucket with sand and dumped layer upon layer onto an ever-growing mound, stacking the towers on top of each other, not knowing it would all eventually get too big or heavy, destined to topple. 

Two guards blocked the mechanised gate, operated by a shabby building to the right, standing so small in the massive shadow of the wall, twigs in the shade of the tree they’d fallen from. 

A dozen more grey twigs paced the perimeter, Their uniforms reflected the grim November morning; nowhere near tolerable and unremarkably grey. Shivers acompained every step along lanes fencing in the entryway for vehicals, or the pedestrian walkways running parallel inside railing dividers. They all carried rifles in their arms and electric stun-batons on their hips – an A.C.R.D. crowd control favourite, previously distributed to the kind of cattle farms Paige's mother would organise protests for while making sure her daughter knew never to buy from any brand supplied by Highworth Farms. Two more Guards occupied a box attached to the wall, operating the gates. Paige saw them as two blurs talking to each other through the glass window, occasionally referencing the bus outside, hunched over the control panel in chairs so decayed and moth eaten it was any wonder they could hold the two Guards weight. 

Shouts rose from outside. Two guards broke from their perimeter route, vaulting the metal railings to bolt towards a building half demolished by the construction of the wall through its block and source of the sudden noise. Turning in her seat, Paige watched a door burst openbefore they could reach it, banging against the wall. A man was pushed out from inside, landing on the ground with a cry. A Guard followed him, training her gun to the back of his head, ordering him to stay on his knees. A second Guard trailed his partner, dragging a woman by the scarf around her neck. He pushed her down beside the other civilian, his stun-baton drawn and sparking. If Paige squinted she swore the civilian woman’s body twitched and convulsed sporadically as she coward at their feet. She couldn’t hear what was being said from inside the bus and the windows couldn’t open, even without those unnecessary, obscuring bars.

Ladies first. The Guard who’d brought her out hauled her to her feet. Running his hands over her. Pulling at her clothes. Ransacking her dignity as thoroughly as a dog nosing through the fingers holding the treat. Violent excitement punctuated each grab and pull for any contraband she might be carrying. The woman tried not to make a sound, staring straight ahead as she braved the victimisation of this perimeter Guards break from boredom. From her window seat Paige could see every flinch each time he put his hands on her. Done with her, he shoved her back to her knees. She‘d been trying to find a way into the Centre. Putting a wall around something was the quickest way to get everyone wanting a piece of it. Rations were distributed as equally as possible. Housing was allocated. Basic supplies shared from records on numbers to a household. But people always wanted more. Within months of the walls going up smuggling packs formed to get it for them. 

It disgusted Paige. People who thought they could take what they wanted, fuck law, fuck society, fuck anyone else. Never stopping to consider getting it meant stealing from other people who needed it too. 

The man was next, his Guard equally rough, maybe more. She battered him about in her search for stolen goods. He tried to resist, pushing at her arms, struggling to his feet. The Guard grabbed him, ripping down the back of his shirt. Paige watched her stumble, shouting words intelligible through the thick glass as she stared at something on the man’s back. The Guard beside her fumbled for his gun. 

Steel moaned around the releasing lock, the bus coughing back to life and sputtering forwards before the gates fully opened. Paige turned further in her seat, leaning over the back, straining to see what was happening. Did the man have something hidden down the back of his pants? Was he hurt? The bus passed through, the jaws of the City Centre beginning to swallow them inside. The male civilian fell back to his knees and put his face in his hands. His Guard held her gun to the back of his head.

A single ominous crack penetrated the echo of the closing QZ gate.

Worming her hand over her knees and under her chinn she slipped her clammy fingers into her shirt, seeking the cold steel set of dented dog tags, holding them until her knuckles became icecaps and the stencilled 'EMRY, CRAIG' was halfway pressed into her palm. The only reminder of her father's time in the army flooded through the tight gripping of her chest, bringing her back inside the bus. She’d found the tags in her parent’s bedroom, looking for something of his, if only to remember the way her father felt or smelled or looked after five weeks of not knowing where he was, if he was still alive, and why he'd chosen to flee his labs and family. She also wanted something to help her mother stop crying.

Childhood was collapsing in the wake of her fathers disappearance, thrusting her into a foreign world of responsibility to be the best little girl she could be for a grieving mother and wife. Her endurance lasted three weeks, then, to the day of her father's disappearance, the first outbreak erupted along the east coast. Things always seemed obvious when looked upon in hindsight. Paige wondered, if she'd had a more suspicious mind, or known her father better, she could have forseen that he’d do anything to protect her and her mother. And after the eighth time he dodged his business partners calls, after the fifth time representatives of the company came to the house only to be turned away, he saw no other choice but to vanish. 

The tags weren’t a picture in a locket but, despite being hopelessly swept up in his wife whenever she gave him the heavy lidded, slightly crooked smile she reserved specially for him, his response couldn't be so classically romantic, bogged down in every other as common as a red rose on valentines day attempt at showing affection. Anything so uninspired wasn’t the man her father had been.

The bus stopped again. Irresponsibly quick in her half-aware state, Paige rocked up from hiding her face in her knees. Sidewalks jumped, the buildings above blurred as the sudden jolt cricked her neck and set her head spinning. The unscheduled stop wasn't near the Boarding School. In fact Paige had no idea where in the city they were. All the buildings were in the same grimy, run down state, so grey that Paige couldn’t tell where they ended and the sky began. 

The doors opened, then shut behind a cotton upside down ice cream cone bobbing up the stairs. Headphones on over a dark beanie, a boy appeared, his head swaying to whatever he was listening to. Who was this kid who could get hold of a music player? Though cold as a brick, Paige still had her phone, unwilling to part with it, even if it hadn’t so much as touched a charger in over two years. 

The boy turned, lazily saluting the Guard who’d escorted him with a limp flick of the wrist and two fingers. The dour Guard did not reciprocate the, frankly, insultingly lazy mockery, rigidly enduring the salute until the doors shut, the engine finally turned over on the second attempt, and he could return to duties he didn't have to hide his disdain from. 

Double finger gunning his chaperone's retreating back, spit flecking the dirty glass as he mimicked two pistols firing at his hips, the boy turned to survey his options regarding seats. Strands of blond hair fought to slip free under the dark beanie, so close to being in the way of his eyes that he could brush them back if not so at home in his unkempt, sleepy-eyed aesthetic. Underneath, when a colbolt gaze caught her watching him, a slow smile stretched across his face. A concurrent blush rushed upon hers. He began moving up the aisle, looking the type who liked to claim the entire back. Or maybe he’d sit in the opposite row to her, a trait uniquely possessed by those who lacked any awareness outside of themselves; when everyone else was already packed in like sardines and there was hardly any room left, they’d spread out across entire rows rather than sacrifice an inch of comfort and condense themselves to a single seat. Lacking the enterage to assert any creed by dominating his own space, he managed singularly to be even worse. Swaggering up, he parked it next to her,  oofing as he let his weight, bandy right knee knocking against her left, fall into the periphery of her personal space. 

There were perhaps fifty other seats on the bus, all empty. 

“Um, excuse me?” She tapped him on the shoulder when she realised he couldn’t hear her. He made a show of putting his hand into his pocket and thumbing off whatever device made the music play, before slipping the earphones off his head. The nod for her to go on was unnecessary. “What are you doing here?”

“Any unaccounted for child under the age of eighteen must be relocated to a Military run boarding school, effective immediately,” intoned the boy, voice devoid of emotion to match the recording that droned Roja’s youth re-housing initiative.

“I meant on this empty bus-“

“Not empty,” he noted, cutting her off. 

“-Right here. Right next to me,” Paige finished, unamused. 

“All right, all right,” he chuckled, his mirth incorruptible. “Let’s just say my dad found out I was slumming it outside and moved me into the City Centre. He’s... accommodating like that.”

“So you’re not unaccounted.” Paige motioned in a general outward motion. “You might want to rethink this bus.” And seat, please. 

“I don’t have to rethink it. This is the best I’m going to get.”

He didn’t sound happy about it, though Paige could understand. He could be the son of a deployed soldier, or one of the out of city farm workers. If there was no mother or orher family to house him, the boarding school would be the only option. Yet his bitterness became breath on the coals of her irritation. Sporadic or consistent, she'd give anything for her father to be even remotely around. “He'd do anything to be with you if he could. I'm sure he'll visit.”

The boy shrugged, pulling back from their close quarters. Collecting himself in the space it took Paige to consider offering more comfort, he rallied with an impish smile. Alarm bells went off in her gut when she noticed the dimple in his right cheek. “So, why are you being taken to the centre?” He leaned in conspiratorially. “Who’d you bribe?” 

Paige leaned as far away as she could before the window betrayed her. “I didn't bribe anyone. I got the orders to pack my stuff up and get on the bus."

It'd been a long ride from the upper east district, the roads overpopulated by despairing souls who didn't seem to care wherever or not they were struck down by the bus. Inside bred a different stock. Purpose drove the ever patrolling Guardsmen confidently across the streets, her journey punctuated by constant quick stops and starts as a result. 

“Just like that?” Paige nodded, which, apparently, was the wrong answer. “You always do what the Military tells you to do? They could have been shipping you out to the Sandbox.” 

“I don't do anything to worry about being shipped off." She got an eyeroll, which she could already anticipate from this evocative boy. Everything he disagreed with seemed to require accompaniment by physical action, in case she didn't get the message. "It’s their job to know what is best, for me and for the people. It doesn’t do any good getting in their way.”

Blond eyebrows scrunched together, almost disappearing into the beanie, looking at her like he would a women having a full conversation with a mailbox that ended with an invitation for dinner. "Seriously?"

“Well, obviously I’m not being sent to the Sandbox,” Paige said icily in way of answer. “Seems like they’re doing their jobs perfectly fine.”

“But you didn’t know that when you got on the bus.”

Said bus finally pulled into the unloading zone of a schools front entrance. Paige knew where they were this time and stood to get off. The boy stayed sitting, blocking the way out. He smiled up at her when she gave his thigh an urging little nudge with her knee. Paige was seconds from shoving him off the seat when he decided to move, shifting from their row to the one opposite with a dramatically weighty sigh too overacted to be anything but still taking enjoyment from frustrating her.

Taking up the doorway at the foot of the steps was the last man she expected to see. President William Roja – though the last time she saw him in person he was Mr. Roja, the man her parents worked with. The three of them built their pharmaceutical company together. Her parents were more than happy for him to put his name on it - their interest laid in how products would help the people. Roja was the bank. Mom and dad and their work were the money. They liked to use their hands, not sit at desks. Her mother always said sitting was the new smoking for people like them, it would eventually kill them, so William ran the company while her parents discovered new ways to make people better.

Looking at the President, smiling awkwardly up at her as she descended the steps of the bus, Paige could put the last few pieces of her sudden transfer together.

He stepped in to meet her. An escort of Guards waited at the foot of the boarding school steps, professionally keeping their distance, not so politely staring at the interaction as if they thought Paige was packing under her ratty redistributed coat.

“It’s good to see you, Paige.”

All business, exactly like she remembered. Though, he was older. Four years weighed on him like a decade, deep wrinkles sinking his tan eyes under a carefully styled cut of salt and peper hair. She remembered it only as dark, and not so slick looking. His hand seemed afraid to grip hers when she shook it. Eyes were on them, they always would be wherever President Roja went, and he would have to stare back unflinching. It was especially hard, Paige knew, when he was also trying to be the Mr. Roja she‘d known.

“I know this change may be hard,” William started awkwardly, his hands cupped loosely around the one she offered him.

“I’m used to it,” Paige said quietly, dragging their conversation along, pulling her hand back from his grasp. 

William shared the notion to keep beating the dead horse. “I'm sure you are, with everything that's happened... What you've... I wanted... Well, the boarding school here is very-”

“Accommodating?”

The boy stepped off the bus, bag slung across his shoulder. The headphones dangled from his neck, music thumping a diluted off-beat techno pulse that sounded like windchimes gripped in cardiac arrest. He strode towards them, his face a stiff caricature of civil as he walked toward William’s opening arms.

“Cal, my boy,” the President called with restrained enthusiasm, as a president could not exclaim, even happily, without fear of beingbodied by an overzealous guard. 

Cal stopped before him, pulling off the beanie, and held out a hand in much the same formally awkward fashion Roja had to Paige moments before. “Hello, Sir.”

William ignored the hand, stepping forward to wrap the boy tightly in his arms. It took Cal by surprise. He hugged back after a few seconds, arms more hovering around the mans shoulders than actually holding, patting William’s back a few times uncomfortably. When William pulled away he was still smiling, but from the tighter lines it was obvious he’d felt the loose affection in the empty gesture. 

“Why shake when I can hug my boy?” he chuckled, ever the politician. Cal shifted in place, fingering his backpack strap in an effort not to look uncomfortable. “Well, as he said,” William barrelled on, turning back to Paige. “The city centre will be much safer, for the both of you.”

“Opposed to all the other people who ‘get’ to live outside the walls,” Cal murmured offhandedly, not looking at William.

Momentum carried Willaim through the comment, sweeping the awkwardness away with a wave of his hand. “Paige, I’m not sure if you remember my son, Cal Roja?”

Snippets of memory surfaced. A little boy in her parents labs, toddling after William during a routine visit, looking up at him as if he held the world on his shoulders and the sun in his eyes. That boy would have to reach upwards for his father’s hand, and he’d do whatever he could to inject himself into conversations his father would be having, be it with a jannitor or his business partners - doing whatever he could to sound exactly like him, often repeating what his father just said word for word.

William was still a foot taller than his young son, but that was all of what remained of the memory. One Roja a sleek upright tower, the other a slouching mismatch ofuntidy edges with an open bag and light hair sticking up in uneven tufts. 

Whatever happened to Cal's mother eluded her, or if he ever told her about the woman at all. She didn't need confirmation on who he took after most. The father and son couldn’t be more opposite of each other.

Every child thought their dad was a superman, but she doubted this was what that little boy envisioned. 

“No.” Paige gave Cal a sympathetic shrug. “Sorry. It’s been a few years.”

A bright flush crept up Cal’s paler complexion, possibly as he remembered how casually he’d approached her on the bus. Neither Roja could hold eye contact wih her for more than a few seconds.

“I’m sure you’ll fit in,” William said, failing to guess the source of Paige’s quiet. “And now you kids have the wonderful oppertunity to get reacquainted.” 

“Sure,” Cal mumbled without looking up from the ground.

William, the adult of the three trapped in this never ending whirlpool of discomfort, ploughed through the interaction. “Your parents were two of my best friends, Paige. I’d give a lot to get to meet them for the first time again.”

So would she.

“In fact I’m sure Cal would be more than happy to show you around.”

Cal couldn’t look more eager to get out of there, straightening up as he stepped away in invitation. His head jerks and raised eyebrows to get her moving were hard not to look at over Roja’s shoulder. She doubted he’d be so bold if his father could see him. 

“No.” Paige declined quickly, stepping back from the two men. Their confused expressions was the only similarity they shared. She was quick to back peddle, forcing a smile. "Thank you Mr. Ro- Mr. President, but I wouldn't want to pull a son away from his father." Cal winced. "It was good to see both of you again, but I can take care of myself.”

She left them behind, disappearing into the shadow of the school.


	10. Chapter Eight

Atticus took the hoodie at sun up..

Where was he leading them? Were they going the direction they'd wasted half an hour arguing over, or was a course change happening without their knowing? Paige wouldn't put it past him, but the only directional skills she owned was knowing the sun rose in the east and set in the west, the group plodding along while it rested over their left shoulder. The best she could hope for was Jasper or Travis realising if they weren't heading home.

The sun rose and rested high. A milky film blanketed the sky, never blocking the sweltering rays, never thinking to thicken to cloud and make the heat almost tolerable, never a breeze or gust of wind cooled the flat, hot air. A born Louisianan bumpkin, Paige thought she could handle her sun. Apparently years in D.C. could soften a tolerance. Sweat slicked every possible surface, she could see it giving her arms a gross sheen. The hoodie was gone from Atticus by mid morning, a dark stain of sweat spearing down between his broad shoulders. Even Travis couldn't hold out, shedding his thick brown jacket and wringing out the soaked garment. Cooper panted heavily. Adam's usual quick pace lagged drowsily. Jasper's rusty hairplastered his scalp like an overworked middle aged office manager. Despite all this, Atticus restricted water to one bottle between two, taking the rest from Paige to carry and keep an eye on. Travis shared his bottle with Cooper,using the baseball cap as a water bowl. Paige envied Adam everytime he put the cool damp hat back on his head, slobber and all.

Jasper, sweating double what he was sipping, nudged Paige. "Climate change is no longer some far-off problem; it is happening here, it is happening now."

With all his complaining of the treachery that clung to politics like a knife you couldn't remove for fear of making the stabbing worse, Paige's father followed every campaign, every speech, every address, and every press release of the presidents in his lifetime. Barack Obama had been one of his favourites.

"I didn't peg you for an environmentalist," Paige said, and felt how parched she was when her bottom lip had to peel away from the top.

Jasper snorted, squinting up at the sun. He passed her the water bottle, polite enough to not watch her sluice the grit from her mouth. "Nope, but I totally called what would happen when The Man couldn't keep seeding all our clouds."

"You're gonna wanna stop 'im now, Paige!" Travis called from ahead of them.

She welcomed the distraction. "Cloud seeding?"

Jasper launched into a rant too detailed to be born from the opportunity, moving through the conspiracy with a zealot like fever. Government's manipulated weather in order to control anything from global warming, populations, and military weapons testing, to public health and flooding. Amount or type of precipitation that fell from the clouds was modified by dispersing into the air substances that served as cloud condensation or ice nuclei, which was meant to alter the microphysical processes within the cloud. Or something along those lines. To be honest the science was completely lost on her.

"They do it to increase rain or snow, suppressing weather like this. Genetic weather for their genetic food," Jasper said, waving his arms at the blistering air around them. "And when they couldn't stop it any longer, them idiots who said global warming wasn't real got a warm wet slap in the face with a lot of humidity."

"You mean humility?" Paige asked.

Jasper grinned. "Nope."

"That's... interesting," Paige said, trying to process everything Jasper had thrown at her while appearing engaged. It seemed to work, Jasper launching into what he could remember of ecology reports and environmental studies conducted in China he'd read on his computer.

If she'd been paying attention, she would've realised most of her questions ended up being about the computer than the topic he was trying to educate her on.

Paige did her best to keep focused, taking tiny sips from her water only when her mind began to fade from Jasper and surrender to the heat. When the trees started becoming swirls of green and brown was as far as she could take it. She couldn't help losing track of how long they'd been walking, where they were going, what she was thinking, what Jasper was saying. So consumed with the heat, she didn't notice Atticus halting the group until Jasper reached out to stop her from walking into his back.

Through shimmers of heat Paige saw he was looking at a town half a mile down the from their spot of flat road. A sign rushed up to meet her in her haze, green paint long blistered and peeling, though the leftover impression of white letters wasn't so faded she couldn't read Welcome to Anthony, Kansas. It looked no better or bigger than the town he'd found her in, ramshackle being the only word springing to murky mind.

Adam drew up beside Atticus. A two party conversation ensued in hushed voices, Atticus shaking his head a lot, Adam not doing much in the way of arguing. Paige watched them as closely as she dared without being obvious. She was beginning to understand Adam's way of communicating with Atticus, small submissions so that when he suggested a different idea, something Atticus didn't seem to like, he was appeased enough to at least listen. When he all out refused, Adam simpered and sucked up until the idea he proposed worked its way around to being suggested by Atticus; and if Atticus said it, that's what they did.

She ventured closer, trying to hear what they were saying. The moment Atticus noticed her he went quiet, shooting her one of his stony looks.

She ignored it. "What's the plan?"

"We move on," Atticus said in a tone to match those eyes. Adam stayed quiet behind him, also looking at Paige with eyes that asked much more softly for her to be quiet.

"That town could have supplies." Adam's shoulders drooped as he moved off, fleeing the impending blast zone. "We could try to find more water, or maybe a place to refill our bottles." She rattled her mostly empty water bottle to emphasise the point.

Stony eyes shifted to annoyed, a change she was used to seeing after only a day. "We move around the town, keep our distance. When we come back to the road we keep going," he said in his low voice, adding a deep slowness to make sure she understood him. He began to turn away, done with the conversation.

"Why can't we stop in the town?"

"Because it's not safe," Atticus said irritably, which wasn't much. He was always irritable, and nowhere was safe.

"So what happens when we run out of water? When you can't glare until some magically appears?" Paige said before he could take a step. He failed to mask the growl as he turned to her. "What's the plan? Or do you have something up your sleeves?"

"Sorry, Princess, I was waiting till I could find you some cucumber or lemon." Atticus rolled his eyes. "We're wasting time."

"And when we're dying of thirst?" She pulled out her half empty water bottle. Jasper licked his chapped lips.

Atticus looked at the water, then at the four bottles he was guarding. "Looks like enough to me."

"One bottle isn't enough! Who knows if we'll find a water source in this heat!" Atticus was the spark, the heat the fuse of her temper.

Atticus' jaw ticked. Like that, her fuse burned another inch shorter at the smirk he was poorly masking. "If you run out, drink the tuna juice."

All day, she'd been losing it; slowly during the hours of plodding under the hot sun with barely a sip of water, now all at once as Atticus returned every point of reason with snark and that stupid smirk. Screw Adam's agreeing and simpering. She was going to yell until Atticus had no choice but to hear her, Feral's be damned. Not sure what was going to come out, she opened her mouth.

The grass rustled nearby.

Atticus rushed over and dragged her behind him. Machete unsheathed, he pointed it towards the rustling. Adam was in front of her a second later, arm out and keeping her back while Atticus faced the threat himself. Planned, rehearsed. Marked through like it happened a hundred times a day. Uncast and left without weapons in the dance, Jasper and Travis placed themselves at her sides with rocks and thick sticks in hand. Cooper growled at Travis's side, haunches up and ready to spring.

One man, no, a boy was with him, staggered out of the bushes. Blood covered the man's left side where the boy held him up. Clothes draped loosely off skinny frames, and any skin Paige could see was a patchwork of grime, dry skin andscabs.

"Please, help us!" the man cried in agony through yellow teeth, the same instant the boy wailed, "He's been hurt!"

Water in hand before she stopped to think, Paige moved, but Atticus blocked her path. His eyes roved the men, dark irises cataloguing the blood, their tattered clothes, where their hands rested. He didn't take a step closer or any back, tension curling through his shoulders, up into his neck.

Cooper ventured from Travis' side, drawn by mingling scents of grime and blood. "Shit! That's a dog!" A shriek erupted from the Bleeding Man's throat, echoed by a surprised yelp from Cooper. Hackles porcupined up the dogs neck, goldon shoulders dipping as a low rumble filled their standoff.

"He ain't infected!" Travis whistled Cooper back to him. "He ain't gonna hurt'cha."

"We're moving on." Voice sudden and firm, dark eyes fixed on the Bleeding man while keeping his machete raised, Atticus took a step back. He knocked into Paige when she didn't move. The look he threw her was too brief to read, eyes returning sharply to the men. "We're moving on."

"He's bleeding." Atticus may not lose sleep over leaving people to die but that wasn't who she was, and he wasn't going to start making her.

"They're not-"

"Please," the Bleeding Man cut in, voice thick with pain. "They came at us... Killed so many..."

"We have our own problems," Atticus growled, taking another step back.

Paige dug in her heels when he tried to push her. "We're not leaving them."

He cast a glance at the grass, at the hobbling men. "They'll be fine. Look, he's not bleeding anymore."

She hoped he could see how appalled she was. "They're hurt. And there could be others who need help."

"There are!" the boy tried to take a step towards her, buckling when the Bleeding Man almost tumbled to the ground. "We barely escaped, but the others-"

The Bleeding Man pushed up on the boy's shoulder, looking at Paige as he started sobbing. "They took my little girl."

Something in Atticus wavered, his machete lowering slightly. Not missing her chance, Paige slipped under his arm before he could ignore the Bleeding Mans pleas again, twisting away when he made a grab for her. She braced herself on the Bleeding Mans other side and he sagged into her, his arm folding around the back of her neck. His relief couldn't be contained, bursting forth in a broad, sickly grin. Atticus was furious, Paige knew, and she also knew she'd hear about this later, but right now she didn't care. "Show us where they took your daughter."

On her own she wouldn't be much help, but Atticus needed her alive, needed to keep her in his sights at all times. So she moved with the Bleeding Man and the boy when they turned and led her at a fast jog through the grass, towards Anthony. Cursing followed, and the angry hacking at grass around his legs as Atticus and hisnmultitude of killing experience and weapons gave chase.

"What about the rest of you?" the boy asked.

Paige craned her head around to see the boys watching them from the road, getting smaller and smaller as they waded towards the town. She couldn't be sure, but it looked like Adam was pulling at Jasper's arm, waving the other hand at the trees.

Atticus glared at the two men. "I told them to wait for us to come back."

"Wouldn't more people give my baby a better chance?" the Bleeding Man wheezed.

The impassioned question evoked nothing. Atticus hacked the heads off some grass stems, glaring at the arm wrapped around Paige's neck. The rifle slung across Atticus' back would scare anyone off even without the clear air of a man who knew how to use it, but Adam and his pistol would have made Paige feel safer. And they had no idea how many they would be up against. Surely Atticus had to knowback up was the smartest move. Yet he'd ordered the others to stay behind. He'd proven himself a fine murderer, but he'd insisted it was for a reason.

"Do you know how many there are?" Paige asked the Bleeding Man. He didn't answer, staring straight ahead. Sweat poured down his forehead. She hoped the pace wasn't hurting him too badly. "Did you see-"

"I saw my daughter being dragged off!" he snapped at her.

"Hey!" Atticus barked, his steps thumping the ground quicker behind them.

The boy on the Bleeding Man's other side stumbled, the shift of grass to concrete beneath their feet tripping Paige up as well. The two men doubled their pace, dragging her with them until she got her feet back under her. They must be getting close to the attack site. Paige sped up with them. She cast a look over her shoulder, checking Atticus was still with them. He'd dropped back a few paces, fumbling with his machete and trying to sheath it while tugging his rifle round and into his arms.

She should wait for him, he was the muscle. But she saw the determination in the Bleeding Man's sweaty brow, a slight lift to his mouth like he was trying to smother a smile. He had hope. They would save his daughter. Atticus could scowl at her for being right for a change, after they got that little girl back in her father's arms.

She heard it first, a soft crying, getting louder, then they turned a corner and sped towards a flat grey two story building with huge windows, some cracked, some whole, all blacked out. The attackers must be keeping the survivors somewhere inside. She didn't remember passing the bodies the Bleeding Man mentioned. She must have run right past the dead, but like when she careened into a gas station for her new friends, her focus was on finding the living. No time to for too lates or what ifs or those already gone. Then the Bleeding Man froze, jarring Paige so sharply she lost her grip on him.

"Jenny..." The name shuddered out of him. He ripped himself from the boys grip, exploding into a run and disappearing behind the grey building. The boy sped after him, faster than Paige could keep up with. If these men rushed into the attackers, injured and weak, they were going to get themselves and a little girl killed.

She slipped between a ransacked post-office and a busted up arcade, her feet skidding over dusty quarters and stamps. Game tickets stuck to the bottom of her shoes. She found the main street bisecting the town in two after cutting across the parking lot of an old second hand clothes store. The boy raced across, disappearing into the alley behind the huge grey building. The more ground she gained the more the blackened display windows took shape, and she found herself sprinting into the lot of a demolished car dealership.A lonely Winnebago stood sentinel as its show piece, door torn off,the furniture inside ripped out. She ran through the garbage and shattered glass, towards where the boy had gone. She turned as he did, running hard, spotting him waiting for her at the end of the alley. The first smile she'd seen on his face flinty and jagged in the shadows.

It disappeared, the world vanishingunder her. She found the ground again, the force of her landing driving air from her lungs, pain lancing through her back as it smacked heavily into the ground. Her eyes shot open in shock. Coughs racked through her battered body, every inch hurting.Barley managing to push herself up into a sitting position, she doubled over to hack and wheeze the pain from her body.

Crying echoed, louder in this hole of th earth. Jenny was in here, wherever here was. Paige scrambled through the rubble and semi dark. "Jenny?" Her throat ached, voice hoarse from coughing. "Jenny, your daddy's worried."

Had the Bleeding Man and the boy missed this? Maybe they'd weakened the roof as they'd run across, thinking Jenny ahead instead of right beneath their feet? She looked up, but the top of the chamber was too dark to make out. The only light shone through the hole she'd fallen through. A door swung inwards on rusted hinges, her muddy shoe print staining the glass window.

She searched through the dark until she hit a wall. She tried the other way, but after moving about twenty feet, crossing through the circle of light, she hit something leathery and firm, large enough for her to sit on. A... car seat.

"Daddy?"

Paige's head snapped to the sound. It was Jenny's voice, but it wasn't right. It crackled and jumped. She felt her way towards it.

"Daddy, I'm scared... It's too loud.... I want you here."

Softness instead of cold stone, her fingers closing over it. Pulling it to her, she dragged herself back into the circle of light. A teddy bear, rotted with age, covered in dust and duck tape, strapped over and over again around its middle, a phone attached to the back. A voicemail was playing on loop, Jenny's terrified crying filling the dark cavern.

"Do you like it?" The Bleeding Man peered down at her. He was grinning, she could make out his white eyes and rotted teeth. "That beauty's been handing us gullible idiots for months," the Bleeding Man cackled. "Woman mostly. They can't seem to help themselves." He began to wail, voice pitched high, pretending to cry like the recorded girl, and Paige realised with crushing force how stupid she'd been. "Where's my poor little girl? They took her."

"Stop it!" Paige choked. The recording began again in her hands, the girls pleas filling the RV.

"What you getting so mad about?" the Bleeding Man snapped. "We've given you a nice cosy RV to stay in." He cocked an eyebrow, a fake epiphany splitting his features. "Or, maybe you're worried you'll be lonely?"

What else were they going to do? And where was the boy?

"Daddy, I'm scared... It's too loud.... I want you here."

"Where is she?" a voice asked dangerously. She heard scuffling, someone coming closer with heavy purposeful footsteps.

"Don't!" Paige cried even though she knew it was too late. "Atticus, stop!"

Shadows blocked the circle of light. Looking up, Paige could see the tip of a rifle pointing at the Bleeding Man, whose hands were up.

"She fell in, man," the Bleeding Man sputtered, the flush from his laughter translating to a convincing fluster.

The rifle levelled at his chest, Atticus' snarl audible. "You think I couldn't hear you? Where is she?"

"Atticus!" Paige yelled.

The rifle stayed where it was, but his head appeared briefly, looking into the RV. He shook his head, muttering something as he looked back at the Bleeding Man. "Get her out of there before I bl-"

He cut off, entire body stiffening. Paige couldn't see what was happening, but another set of footsteps thumped across the RV's partially underground roof. Across the hole, the Bleeding Man's face split into a triumphant grin. Leisurely, he reached into the back of his pants and drew a pistol, pointing it at Atticus' chest.

"Big man,"mocked a voice when Atticus didn't budge. The boy, but Paige couldn't see him. "Had a gun in your back before?"

"Bigger than that purse filler you're packing, and more than one," Atticus spat.

"Atticus!" Paige called up to him. He didn't look down at her.

The Bleeding Man did, trusting the boy to keep Atticus back. "He'll be with you in a sec, sweetie."

"Daddy, I'm scared... It's too loud.... I want you here."

"You gave her a name this time," the boy laughed. "Jenny? Where's my poor little Jenny? My babay girl! I think that hit home for someone."

The Bleeding Man laughed giving Atticus that same smug smile he'd shown when Paige slipped under his arm. When she'd sealed their fate while Atticus tried to get them to safety.

The Bleeding Man walked forwards, pressing his gun into the centre of Atticus' chest. "Where did you tell the rest of your group to go."

Atticus didn't look down at the gun. "Told them to stay put."

The Bleeding Man pressed the gun harder into his chest. "You lie, you get shot."

The corner of Atticus' mouth quirked up. "Pretty shitty ambush. You didn't hide even one guy in the grass to tail them?"

The butt of the Bleeding Man's gun cracked against his skull. Atticus staggered, one hand reaching to hold his head before he changed his mind, standing up straight, arms by his sides. Blood ran down from his hair, matting the black curls. Somehow he possessed the remarkable talent of making people feel stupid, and horrible timing of when to use it.

"Where did you tell them to go?" the Bleeding Man repeated.

"Is it only the two of you?" Atticus asked instead of answering. "Scavenger groups used to fill cities, at least they did until you started to die out."

The Bleeding Man fired over Atticus' shoulder. Paige screamed, covering her ears.

"Daddy, I'm scared... It's too loud.... I want you here."

Atticus' chest rose and fell erratically but his features stayed schooled. "Killing me won't get me talking."

"Forget it, man. The jackass has a rifle," the boy said, the stiffening of Atticus' shoulders suggesting the gun at his back was getting twitchy. "Who gives a fuck about his friends?"

The Bleeding Man adjusted his grip on the gun. "Take his gun."

"I'll break his neck before he knows the make," Atticus snarled as casually as picking out his tie for the day.

The Bleeding Man stared Atticus in the eye and, without looking away, took the gun from his younger accomplice. "No you won't," he said, and pointed the second gun down into the RV.

Atticus glared as the boy hesitantly slipped the rifle from his shoulder, his pack and machete following. Stripped to their liking, the Bleeding Man gestured towards the hole with the other gun. Atticus moved towards it, slow, resolute, the last bit of defiance he had left. He lowered himself, legs dangling. The Bleeding Man rolled his eyes and kicked his back, sending him tumbling into the RV. He crashed on his chest, groaning, air dragging raggedly through his lungs. Paige reached to help him up but he shook her off, pushing himself up on shaking arms.

The Scavengers pawed through his supplies. Anything they didn't want they tossed. When they disgarded the hoodie Atticus snatched it as it fluttered down.

"What the hell is this?" Paige couldn't see what the boy was holding. "He acted like such a tough guy."

"Leave that, it's worthless," the Bleeding Man grunted.

Atticus tensed beside her, eyes glued to the hole. His body shook with rage. The boy laughed some more, tossing whatever he held into the RV. Atticus snatched it out of the air before Paige could get a look, but she thought she saw a red star. He stuffed it into the pocket of the hoodie, turning his glare on her when he noticed her watching him. His empty pack fluttered down, landing in the circle of light between them.

"Daddy, I'm scared... It's too loud.... I want you here."

"Now what?" the boy asked the Bleeding Man.

"Let us out," Paige called up. "You've taken our stuff, just let us go."

"Sorry, sweetie," the Bleeding Man jeered down at her. "We still gotta find where your friends are hiding. We'll be coming back with our group, so sit tight," he finished, pointedly to Atticus, who sneered up at him in response.

"Don't go anywhere," the boy jeered.

The Bleeding Man reached through, grabbing the door handle and swinging it closed with a loud bang. Their cackles bounced off the walls of the RV.

"Stop!" Paige cried desperately. Her mind raced for something to make them worth saving, something the Scavengers would value. "I have the cure! The cure to the Feral virus. You can help us! Don't leave us down he-"

Atticus slapped his hand over her mouth, hissing "Shut up," in her ear. But the Scavengers were gone, their cackles fading into the air. When they were goneAtticus let her go, leaning back against the leather seats.

The bastard wasn't going to move. He was giving up. "You can't just sit there! We have to get out of here!"

"We're not getting out of here," Atticus groaned. He tipped his head back against the seat, cursing when he knocked the spot the man clubbed.

"You could boost me out. You could break down the door!"

He didn't move, cautiously reclined so as not to jostle his head. "The RV is on its side. That hole in the ceiling is the door."

"You're not even going to try?"

"Nope." He popped the P, then leaned his head back again, mindful of his bump this time. "We're going to sit here and wait for them to come back, cause there isn't another way out of this. Nice job, by the way."

He didn't say anything more to her. He didn't even have to call her stupid.

"Daddy, I'm scared... It's too loud.... I want you here."

How many times did she cry for her daddy when she was scared? Unbidden, his name the one she'd cry out in the night? She'd sobbed after hours of trying to distract her mother from his absence. She'd begged him to come save her from the boarding school back in D.C. Now they were both gone. Why was she fighting, again? To bring back a world where there would be two empty spaces? She wanted her parents now as she sat in the dark, feeling alone despite Atticus sitting less than three feet away. More than anything she wanted that stupid bear to stop talking. She ripped the phone from its back and smashed it against the floor. It didn't break. The recording started again but she couldn't listen to it again. She tried to crush it with her fist, but her fingers began to bleed before the phone had so much as a dent. Heat behind her eyes threatened tears but she wouldn't cry. Instead she gave it the heel of her shoe until the phone finally shattered, the recording guttering out.

She ignored the eyes on her as she slumped back into the dark.

\- Survivor Count: Two


	11. Chapter Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys!
> 
> Usually I like to try and update once a week but I’ve totally dropped the ball these last few weeks. In my defence, I have been basically bed ridden with the worst cold I’ve gotten since I got laryngitis. Anyway, I powered througH, and here you are!

“So you don’t get us stuck in the future, this was all your fault.”

It’d been a while, a long while, since either of them had said a word. If she was honest, Paige thought Atticus was asleep. Don’t get her wrong, if a friend was suffering a head wound she’d wake them up and make sure they didn’t make it worse. If it were a friend.

She’d gone through the RV in those hours, from bottom to as close to top as she could reach, falling from the sideways cabinets when she’d run out of handholds and tried to jump the last few feet. Atticus hadn’t budged, hidden in the dark, and she’d assumed he was either being a jackass or actually was asleep. Of course he’d managed worse than her expectations.

“My fault?” Paige spluttered.

“Yes, your fault.” Leather moaned as he sat up from the chair. “You’re the one who fell for their trap.”

In the dark she could match him without a red face giving her away. “And you’re completely blameless?” He snorted in the dark. “You seemed to know what they were doing. Perhaps a word of warning next time? You know what woulda’ gone a long way, a ‘hey Paige, it’s a trap’.”

A dark lump shook his head. “And what if there were more guys waiting in the grass? Does calling their bluff when there could be fifty guns aimed at you sound like a good plan? Oh no, I forgot, a good plan for you is to go running off and get caught up in danger. Again.”

“You could have done something.” She glared where she hoped his eyes were. “You knew they were Scavengers. You knew that Scavengers existed, and you knew there was a possibility we could run into them. What else are we going to run into? Are you going to tell us, or let us find out?”

“It’s not my job to tell you every little thing,” he spat like he was scolding a child. “What you need to know is where to walk and when to stay away from danger, and you’ll do that by doing what I say when I say it.”

She couldn’t believe him. It was difficult before, but this was a new level of asshole. “Yeah... no. That’s not all I need to know.” His dark shape stiffened in the gloom at the mocking low voiced imitation. “I need to know more. In fact, I need to know everything if I’m going to be stuck with you. I need to know you’re not going to leave my friends to die. I need to know when you’re about to get knife happy. I need to know when something is a trap. I need to know where we’re going, and I need to know I’m not going to die of thirst because my protector doesn’t trust me to carry-”

“You know what?” Atticus burst out. He leaned into the pale circle of light, lips pulled back and sneering with dark hateful eyes. “You’re nothing but a little bitch!”

Paige’s jaw dropped then clenched shut again. “Classy.” He could do a lot of things, but she wouldn’t give him the power to offend her.

“Believe me when I say I don’t care,” he snapped. “I’m not talking about the girl who whispers behind the chubby kids back or corners people in the bathroom. You’re a self entitled, spoilt, bratty, scared bitch who wants everything done for her. It’s not a problem until it effects her, and I don’t have time to run around after you!”

“You don’t need to run around after me!” Paige hissed. “I can take care of myself! I made it all the way to Kansas without your ‘help’, murderer!”

“Really? And what were your ideas for getting us out of here? Can I boost you up? Can I break down the door? I’ll believe you can take care of yourself when you actually do something other than follow a straight line!”

“I didn’t ask for you!” No matter where she went it happened, from presidents to prisoners. Everyone thought she needed watching over, coddled, chased by a thousand Mrs. Kaspbrack’s and their smothered cloying embrace. “I didn’t want you with me. I didn’t ask Jasper and Travis to come all the way out here and find me. I wanted to do this on my own! No one else was supposed to get hurt!”

She waited for him to snort and call her spoiled. Entitled. Princess. Different words for the same thing they all saw. It would cut, deeper than she let them all see. She would roll her eyes instead of let resentment show because they knew what they saw: the Princess of the end of the world.

“You’re the only chance left.” His voice startled her from how deeply she’d fallen into her own head. Voice slow and sombre. An unease gripped Paige after how he’d been spitting at her. “Everyone’s only chance. None of us knew we had a chance, and you waited until now to give it to us.” He carried on like he expected her to defend herself. She didn’t. She owed him nothing. “I don’t know your reasons. I don’t care. Believe whatever cosmic, God has a plan, everything-happens-for-a-reason shit you want. Whatever was holding you back is gone. Good. But that doesn’t mean you can make these naive, noble decisions for other people when you’re holding the key! For fucks sake-”

He broke off, pressing a hand to his forehead, suddenly only capable of a few harsh breaths.

“If someone needs my help-”

“They find it somewhere else!” She could hear the clenching of his jaw. “It’s not my job to run around after you. And it’s not your job to save everyone.”

“Then why am I even doing this?” Paige rasped. “Why am I walking across the country, stuck with you, to save everyone?”

“Because there’s nothing. else. left.” No action acompanied the coldly proclaimed reality. “Do you think this is my first choice? To be stuck in this fucking RV? I’m here because there are people out there who will kill you before they let you try for the world. They’ll kill you before they even know what you are, and they’ll definitely kill you after you blurt it out. I need you alive.” Then he was lurching forwards, into the circle of light. His dark eyes found hers in the shadows, holding with the ferocity he fought with. Killed with. “I would die for this. I would die for you. Stop making that too easy.”

Girls in her middle school dreamed for their perfect guy. The guy who would call them beautiful, fight for them and declare their undying devotion to them. Sometimes Paige caught girls in D.C. wishing after the same thing. A handsome Guard. A fellow lost soul; sighing and cooing, they’d pictured him climbing through their window and whisking them away.

Atticus’ vow drew a terrible shiver from a cold place in Paige, a place whose cracked cavernous depths were filled with broken promises. A place she’d fought to keep from opening up and swallowing her every day for the last six years. “I don’t want you to die for me.”

He made a noise in his throat. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“But I want to know why you would.”

His eyes shifted away for a moment, finding hers again and hoping she didn’t notice. “It’s not important.”

“Important enough to die for though." She wouldn't let him get away with it. From the start this wasn’t about what was in her blood, or that he cared about ending the end of the world. Atticus Grace wouldn’t give a shit if they made the cure tomorrow. If so,he’d have taken some blood and left her leaking back in the town he found her in. He needed her for something. Something he’s killed for. Something he would die for.

“All right, if you’re doing this.” He shifted back into the dark, watching her with his stony eyes. “Why did you wait almost six years before leaving D.C.? Why not flash that Emry name and head straight to the Facility and save us all some trouble?” She hoped he didn’t see the stiffening of her back. It appeared she got away with it, until the stretching silence answered for her. “Exactly,” he grunted. “You don’t have to share with me, and I’m not going to share with you. Everything will go by a lot faster that way.”

"If I walk where you say and keep out of your way?” Paige muttered, sarcasm so thick it was like she was actually quoting him. He didn’t react beyond an agreeing hum. “Then lead us.”

“I don’t have-”

“Yes you do.” It was her turn to talk over him, and his turn to shut up and listen. “You don’t want to lead, but you want us to follow? We have to take care of ourselves, yet you’d die for me?”

Cold weighed Atticus’ glare like freshly fallen snow. “Your tag-along cheer squad isn’t my problem.”

“If you die for me then you die for them. That’s what travelling in a group is about.”

“They’re your group,” Atticus growled. “Not mine. They’re not my problem.”

“My group, which means I go with them, and you go with me. My group, which means I look out for them, and they do the same for me. They’d do it for you, but you won’t let them.” He opened his mouth, probably to say he didn’t care, but she carried on over him. “I don’t need to know your why, but we can’t keep going on together if you don’t at least pretend like you’re one of us.”

Atticus’s head turned sharply to the hole in the roof. “Stop talking.”

“God, you’re still not listening! You can’t keep telling me what to d-”

“Shut up!” Atticus snapped at her, and in the heartbeat before she fired back she heard them.

Voices. The Scavengers were returning, far more than the two who left, judging by the jumble of voices. Atticus dove into the shadows, skirting the edges, ducking into a side turned cabinet. His hand lashed out from the darkness, snatching her wrist.

“Get in the chair.”

“What?” He shushed her, head turned towards the door. She could hear the laughter coming closer.

Ripping noises, like two dogs fighting over a stuffed toy, filled the RV. Interior fluff scuffed and bounced off her shoulder as Atticus frntically pulled it from the guts of the sideways leather chair and stuffed it inside a cabinet. A hole was cut, when he’d done it she had no idea. “The chair. Get in the chair. Now. Don’t let them hear you.”

She shook her head before realising he might not see her. “They’ll think you got me out. They’ll hurt you.”

“Don’t argue, there’s no time,” Atticus said, forcing his voice low.

“I’m arguing for you,” Paige whispered harshly. “They’ll think I ran off and make you tell them where I went.”

“Good thing I don’t know where you or the others went.” He shook the flap of leather, the hole he’d carved barely big enough for a child. “Get in the chair before they come.”

“No.” She said. “You can leave people but I won’t be like you.”

His grip on the chair made creases in the leather, growing tight enough to snap the aged material the closer the outside noise came. A stone being kicked, the click of Atticus’ rifle being checked.

“I’m trying to keep you safe.” His voice was tight with the effort of not shouting. “We can’t both be taken or we can’t get back to the others.”

“The others?”

“Yes, the others, those two idiots and their dog, try to keep up,” he said, words hurrying together too fast for her to hear. “I won’t be able to keep you safe, but I can at least get you out and you can find the others.”

Paige touched the spot on her hip where she'd hit the deck, hard. “I can’t get out.”

“You will." He was more sure than made sense. “But only if you get in the chair.”

She looked at it, then at the hole where the voices were coming from, then at him. “What about you?”

His hand snapped open, slapping the chair in frustration. “I don’t matter! What matters is hiding you. So stop fighting me and get under the fucking floor!” He didn’t seem to hear himself. Paige watched his shoulders heave, the sense gradually coming back into his dark eyes. He shook his head, black curls ruffling where they weren't matted with blood. The stone returned. “...In the Chair. Get in the chair.”

She shuffled on hands and knees, sticking to the dark walls, copying Atticus’s skulking movements. He wrenched the slab of chair up, pressing a hand to her back as she crawled inside. The leather slapped when he dropped it behind her, sealing her in a cramped pothole of loose stuffing and warm, musty air.

“If you die, I don’t get to say I told you so,” she muttered into the gloom.

"Quiet.” The corner of the leather lifted. His pack and the black hoodie were shoved into her lap. “Take these. Give them to Adam when you find the others. It’s up to him now. He’ll figure out how to get you south.” The leather slapped back into place, muffling Atticus’ voice. “Remember what I said: there is no us. Do not come back for me.”

The jagged rip was her only source of light, until Atticus fixed the leather back into place so not a single mark could be spotted on the chair. It was too tight a space to manoeuvre the hoodie onto her shoulders, so she left it bundled in her lap with his bag. Whatever he’d stuffed into the pocket sat on her thighs, but it didn’t feel right to sneak a peek. Feeling the chair shift, the back sagged inwards to claim more of her tiny space until it butted against her chin and squashed her knees to her chest.

Boots thumped on the roof and the door swung open, clanging against the wall. “Hello down there.” Atticus didn’t respond to the Bleeding Man’s voice. “Hope you enjoyed your stay in– where’s the girl?”

The chair moved, the indents by her knees pressing in fluid motions as Atticus rolled his shoulders. “Ran off.”

“Explain!” the Bleeding Man barked. Paige pictured him levelling his gun at Atticus’ head.

“Boosted her out thinking she’d pull me up after, but the little bitch bolted with my stuff.”

Paige bristled at the word.

“Little miss Goody Goody left you for us?” The Bleeding Man said, sceptically.

Atticus made a bitter sound in his throat, the chair moving in the motion of a shrug. “Said I wasn’t part of her group.”

Voices grunted and grumbled up above, too many speaking at once to know how many were there. “Don’t blame her,” the Bleeding Man muttered above the rest.

“He’s lying!” a voice she recognised as the boy from before. “I’ve been stood here all day. I woulda’ seen if she got the door open.”

Paige stiffened in the chair, heart beating so fast she thought it might burst through her chest and the leather of the chair. But Atticus only snorted again. “Timed it for that piss you took. You must have been emptying the tank, gave her a long enough head start.”

He was bluffing. She never heard the boy standing guard, let alone knew if he’d gone to relieve himself. They would have heard his boots on the roof. They would have heard him coming back. He couldn’t possibly have been stupid enough to move away from the RV to go. Too much could go wrong, too many things to count on for a bluff so feeble.

There was a pause from above. “I heard you shouting,” the boy said, voice a little higher. “If she’s really gone, who were you telling to shut up?”

”Heard you coming. Looks like you stained yourself. Maybe you should sit down like a little boy till you learn to pee standing up.”

Paige jammed her fist into his back through the leather.

“He could be lying,” a new voice said.

“Get in there and find her, then,” the Bleeding Man ordered.

She listened for the sound of climbing, hoping the Scavenger would fall on his ass like she did.

“Hey-” Atticus cried before a gun fired.

“Att-” His shoulder’s pressing further into the chair was her only indication he was still breathing. Her heart pounded against her ribs. He would have screamed if they’d shot him, she had to believe he couldn’t be stupid enough to hide a bullet wound.

Another shot. She muffled her scream by biting down on her fist. Wood splintered, then another shot. Trembles wracked her and the chair as the sounds of the shattering cabinets came closer one gunshot at a time.

“She's not here!” Atticus yelled at the Scavengers. A bullet ripped through the leather chair, shearing through the top with a dull thwack. It would have gone right through her skull if Atticus carved the hole any bigger. Copper blood coated her mouth from where she’d bitten down on her knuckles.

“Stop wasting bullets!” The Bleeding Man's voice grated with irritation. "Get him up here! We can beat where she went out of him, then some more for the fun of it!”

The Scavengers jeered and laughed. Metal clanged and boots stomped above the leather. Shifting, then the chair widened out as Atticus stood. She didn’t dare move. Above the clamour of the men she heard him begin to climb.

"I can’t reach the door.”

Something crashed to the floor of the RV, the Bleeding Man grunting dispassionate. “Get a move on.”

A sound like a tree limb being struck by lightening made her jump, then a curse from Atticus.

“Bring that knife up!” the Bleeding Man bellowed.

“Knife broke off in the wood. Can’t pull it out.”

He reached the door within the next few seconds; jeers came louder through the thick leather of the chair. Then thumps, like a bags of dirty laundry being dropped over and over. A grunt or moan harmonised each heavy thwack, laughter bringing the torturous chorus together. Paige feared she may vomit in her tiny cave.

“That’s enough,” the Bleeding Man ordered. “Save some for later.”

Someone spat, thick wettness slapping the head of the chair. Her stomach roiled again. She focused until her gut settled into uneasy twists. Only then, when her breathes slowed and her pulse quieted in her ears, did the storm in her quiet enough for her to realise. No longer could she hear Scavenger laughter, no longer shake from the stomping of feet on the roof. She waited, listening for any echo of noise, before she swallowed the new storm mounting, winds of fear and guilt constricting her throat like a snake squeezing the mouse, and pushed out of the leather chair.

Blessedly cool air diluted the must. She crawled free and stretched her aching legs, rubbed them until the pins and needles faded. There was no way she was putting the hoodie on when she could practically wring the sweat out of her hair, so she tied it around her waist. Her back clicked in several loud pops when she looked up, searching for the way out Atticus promised. If it weren’t for the moon she never would have seen the metal blade of Atticus’ machete embedded in the wall above the cabinets, winking at her like it knew a secret she didn’t. The handle lay below, dented, like it had been kicked and stomped on.

Slipping Atticus’ pack over her shoulders, Paige commenced her second attempt at escape. Retracing her climb up the cabinets was the easy part, making sure to avoid the cupboard door she’d partly unhinged when she’d grabbed for it during her fall. Marble sized holes cracked four of the caninets, brittle lines spearheading out from the bullets impact. She wrapped the hoodie around her hand, hesitantly gripping the blade beneath where it protruded from the wood and pulled herself up to the next handhold.Her foot shook as she stepped upon the razor’s edge. It wobbled, shimmers of moonlight arcing across the RV’s walls. One slip would be the end of her knee, the finest of lines between failure and freedom. The blade held, and she managed to boost herself the final leg up and grasp the edge of the door to the outside. She waited, holding her dangling body as still as she could, panting, her fingers slick with sweat despite the chill night air.

There could still be one out there.

And what if there were more people waiting in the grass? Does calling their bluff when there could be fifty guns aimed at you sound like a good plan?

Words he’d spit at her. His refusal to boost her out, knowing, impossibly, this time someone was left in the grass. He’d done nothing, but not because he was giving up. Calling their bluff... but what if it wasn’t a bluff? He knew the Scavengers patterns, how, she hadn’t figured it out but an idea was picking away at the back of her mind. And she'd called him murderer. Not provoked because of their situation like his scathing observations of her. For once, he'd left on higher ground.

So she steeled her arms, ignored her heart hammering in her chest, and struggled her way up and out of the hole. She’d always sucked at climbing the rope in gym class, but if Coach. Martin said get to the top or starve to death in an underground RV, she probably would have tried harder.

Seconds spent trying to catch her breath instead of looking for the others was another second Atticus had to open his big mouth or tilt that mocking smirk at the wrong person. She didn't doubt his ability to stay alive, more feared his natural ability to aggravate. She moved how she pictured he would, sticking to the walls, never going near the main street. Too much light to be seen by, too many shadows for Scavengers to hide in. So she made the darkness of the alleys her friend, skirting walls, ducking under shattered window sills, always checking for eyes, always looking over her shoulder.

But her otherworldly calm broke once she reached the trees at the edge of town. Becoming Paige again, she sprinted for the dark woods without thought of crunching grass or rustling bushes. Escape. Find the others. She couldn’t say how she found the road, running down the middle, staying hidden be damned. She wanted to be found, forgetting that there were more than her friends down the path.

By the time her burning lungs could take no more, Anthony was a moonlit sliver at her back. How would she find them? She couldn't read crushed trails, or tell who’s footprints were who’s by how heavy the indent was. She’d be able to find Travis easily enough. Out here was only paved road and grass swaying in the night breeze.

Home in Louisiana was like this; a long driveway, huge trees penning the way down to the house, keeping their peace in and the noise of the world out. She'd never taken much interest in being outside back then. She’d follow Ella when she wanted to go exploring. Now she wished she’d taken more interest in the backyard camping trips. So stupid, thinking they’d have all the time in the world.

The road was dark, not so much as a lamppost to guide her the right way, but it was her only way. If she was lucky fate could smile on her again, guide her like the last time she plundered blindly after Jaspet and Travis. But it couldn’t take her hand if she didn’t move her feet. She made one step into the dark, then another.

A shape, hunched low, shaddowed by the darkness, jumped out in front of her.

“Come back!”

The black night and the shifting stems worked to conceal the assailants from sight until the first was right on top of her, and Paige realised again how stupid she’d been running out in the open.

Another, bigger than his companion and much skinnier, darted out of the grass. A skeletal spectre stepped into the moonlight, reaching a bony hand towards her. Russet whiskers gleamed silver as a mouth reserved for getting as much information before he was cut off into a sentence as possible dropped open.

“Paige!” Jasper folded his long body around her like a protective mother bird, wrapping her in a hug like she’d been missing for days, not a few hours. “Holy crap, you’re okay! Adam wouldn’t let us split up. He said Atticus has a plan and he wouldn’t want us scattered and looking, like we give a damn what he says. We wanted to look for you.” Cooper trotted up to Paige and licked her ice cold fingers. “Good boy, Coop. Must‘ve smelt you coming up the path. He bolted, and five seconds later you come running.”

Paige barely heard any of what he said. “Where are Travis and Adam?”

Keeping to the edges of the path, Jasper led the way back to the others. Her mood must have breeched the crumbling walls of her patience and self control, Jasper's ealier chatiness extinguished. The walk could only have lasted a few minutes, but every nerve in Paige’s body was wired, jumping from thought to impulse to conscious action not to sprint again or snap at Jasper to move faster. There wasn’t time for this cautious tip-toeing. As it began to feel like they’d been walking for hours, Jasper pointed to a tree with a branch twisted into a corkscrew. He turned off the road and headed into dense coverage of leaves and thick grass stems. They walked directly west of the corkscrew for more agonisingly long minutes. Cooper trotted ahead, disappearing into the thicket where it met a tangle of tall hedge. Jasper winced as with bare hands he pushed the thin sharp branches back for Paige. A cracked stone fountain penned in by four more sides of hedge made up an enclosed garden. Rotted through and split down the middle, a park bench served as the unstable perch were Adam waited, wringing his hands nervously.

“Paige!” Travis gasped, springing up from where he’d been leaning against the fountain. Huge arms spreading wide, she thought he would embrace her like Jasper had. Only Travis knelt down before she reached the fountain, grinning as Cooper bounded up to have his ears fondled. “Good sniffin’, boy.”

Adam jumped to attention, almost toppling the park bench over. "Where’s Atticus?” Moonlight heightened his pale features to a ghoulish palour, his sharp jaw clenched determindely.

Jasper stepped between him and Paige. "Let her catch her breath, man." He handed her a bottle with barely any water left in it.

She pushed it away. “The Scavengers took him. He made them think I’d escaped and left him in their trap.”

While Jasper gawked, the valient sacrifice didn't phase Adam in the slightest. "What did he say to do?”

Jasper rolled his eyes. “He ain’t here. Screw what he says.”

"What did he say to do?” Adam repeated, ignoring Jasper.

Paige felt something close to guilt twist in her chest as she repeated the emphatic last request Atticus made sure she understood. “He said it’s up to you now. You’d know how to get us south and... not to go back for him.”

"Done,” Jasper said, turning to Adam. "Easier than done. We like you."

Adam glared at him. “Not done. We’re not leaving him behind.”

"You’re shitting me?” Jasper looked to Travis for support, but the giant was still fussing over Cooper, a fervour to the cooing and stroking which screamed he wanted no part of this discussion.“He wouldn’t come back for us if this was the other way around. Do you think he’d go back for you?” Adam’s glare deepened. Jasper returned it with pointedly raisedeyebrows when no answer was offered. “Look, I’m not saying I want the guy to die. But he’s gone, and he ordered us not to go after him. You like doing what he says, so I say we give him what he wants.”

"We’re not leaving him behind,” Adam insisted. “You're with me, right, Travis?”

The blond giant glanced up at Adam, then looked at Jasper questioningly, upon which the two dove into a silent argument; eyebrows rose, expressions hardened, until Travis glanced back at Adam, then at the ground. “Sorry, Eastwood. But... I guess Jasper’s kinda right.”

He returned to scratching Cooper’s ears, huge shoulders hunched guiltily.

Adam‘s desperate eyes jumped from the huge back, to Jasper’s resolute crossed arms, to Paige. “You’re just gonna let him die?”

“He left us to die! No, not left, held at gun gunpoint and threatened to kill us if we got in the car!” Jasper yelled. Travis ducked further into Cooper. “We could go back and he would be mad at us for dragging Paige into a rescue mission!”

Adam stepped up to him. “You can’t decide that for her!”

“Like Atticus always does?” Jasper countered. Adam refused to back down though, so he turned to Paige. “If you want to go back then we’re not going to leave your side. But only if you think it’s the right call.”

Adam turned his desperate eyes on Paige. “He saved your life. Twice. We can’tleave him.” But when she didn’t speak up Adam drew back, grey eyes angrier than she ever thought he could look. “Fine! I’ll find him myself. Remember this next time you call him the murderer.”

She flinched, because it was harsh or because it was true, she couldn’t tell where the stinging blow landed. Atticus told her not to go back for him. But when did she ever do what he wanted her to? But she couldn’t leave someone to die. She was at war, as she always was. Never able to decide what was right and what was smart. Atticus could. He’d made the decision, been ready to make it for a while. He’d made the decision for her as well, because he and everyone before him took one look and believed she couldn’t do it for herself.

Whatever was holding you back is gone. Good. But that doesn’t mean you make these naive, noble decisions for other people...

Adam headed for the hedge. “I’m going after him.”

Time to think vanished. Her brain stopped its fighting, realising a war between what was right and what was smart wasn’t one it could contend in. She let silence fill her until only her voice, for once unimpeded, remained. “No.” She found Adam’s eyes in the dark. “I know what we have to do.”

\- Survivor Count: Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I appreciate all feedback and constructive criticism! You who read my work are all wonderful people! Thank you for your patience


	12. Chapter Ten

Cooper's nose skimmed the ground like a skipped black pebble, each sniff punctuated by little puffs and snorts. He hardly lifted his shaggy yellow head, fixated on the trail. Paige gave him the hoodie to scent, hoping it smelled enough like Atticus for Cooper to track. She clutched it now in her hands, holding on to whatever was in the pocket through the fabric. It still didn't feel right to look at it, but se got the feeling Adam would know, would understand the significance of Atticus letting it go. It could be the one thing powerful enough to derail his obstinate determination. So she wouldn't hand it over until they'd tried everything else first.

"This is a stupid idea," Jasper muttered from the back of the group.

"I'm sure Atticus will let us know when we find him," Paige replied, equally enthused.

Jasper snorted. "If we find him."

"How far did they take him?" Adam asked nervously from beside Travis, his hands wringing. "We left the RV behind an hour ago."

"I don't know," Paige answered for the twentieth time. "I couldn't see. Next time I'm underground, inside a chair, I'll remember to use my x-ray goggles."

For the twenty-first time Adam ducked his head, looking out into the dark Cooper lead them through. Their eyes weren't much of a guide. Paige had no idea where they were or what part of the town they were in. It all looked the same. The buildings side to side, back to back, thrown together like a child's Lego creation. Some alleyways were wide enough all four of them could walk side by side. Others were so thin Travis had to walk sideways to spare his giant shoulders a raw scraping. Cooper trotted through it all, nose to the ground, skirting glass and trash scattered across the roads and sidewalks. He would let loose a flurry of sneezes whenever he snorted up the weeds and slivers of grass that poked out between the cracks in the asphalt, then amble on, more focused then Paige knew any canine to be.

"Keep goin', boy." Travis peppered the quiet with similar encouragements for his dog, praises along the line of, "Good boy. That's ma boy." and "Super, Cooper.", like he was talking to a person rather than an animal. It reminded Paige of the longing clinging to her childhood to have her own dog, though she could see she'd never have found a Pomeranian as dependable as Cooper. And she knew she couldn't have gone through the outbreak with one, knowing at any moment her best friend could be taken... That her dog could be dragged off by a D.C. Guardsman and all she'd have was a gunshot to say goodbye too.

She moved further up, onto Travis's other side. "How did you do it?"

"Do what?" Travis asked, not taking his eyes off Cooper.

She struggled to find the right words. "How did you... hold onto him?"

His eyes moved to her then, fleetingly, then back forwards. He stayed silent for a long moment. "I weren't near a Quarantine Zone when it all went down. My whole life I weren't near nothin'." A sad smile touched the corner of his mouth. "My parents had this farm."

"Where?" Paige kept him going. In the boarding school talk of any before's had been pretty sparse, an unspoken rule to never ask about another persons past, hers included. But Travis' mellow voice passed the time, and he seemed to be one of the few who, when the inevitable blow struck, didn't flinch away from memories.

"Missouri. Deep Missouri." When he said it, Missouri came out like Missoura. He gave her a sideways look, eyebrows raised, and she laughed softly. He did as well. "The farm weren't nothin' big; coupa fields, coupa cows, coupa pigs."

"A tractor?" Adam piped up from his other side.

"Yep, Bessa. I called her tha' after my gran'ma." Travis gave a small and remembering-something-funny huff. "Both of 'em loved to huff and puff and move about as slow as a snail with a bad hip. Though for gran'ma that were true."

Paige laughed again. "She must have been so flattered."

"She's the one who pointed it out," Travis chuckled, not even a little on the defensive, expecting no judgement. It was easy to picture a family who laughed together, jumped from one good natured rib to another, each joke inspired not by the need to put down or shame, but quietly remind them they're seen, appreciated, noticed and loved.

Travis' natural talent for comfort was starting to make sense.

"I got Cooper a coupa years before all this. He was part of a litter a neighbour owned, and since she was our only neighbour for a few miles, my ma decided I needed another friend 'sides Jasper. One that wouldn't be, in her words, a 'bad influence'."

"I wanted to see if bulls actually chased red capes," Jasper called up from the back. "She's the one who left the picnic blanket out on the line. She basically left me no choice."

"Yeah, pretty sure my mamma meant you tryin' grow weed in your closet."

"Jasper!" Paige cried, looking back at his grinning face.

He shrugged, not looking particularly chastised. "I've got a gardener's soul who grew up with shitty wifi. I had to find something to do."

"Those aren't mutual problems..."

"Shitty wifi, Paige!" Jasper insisted.

"Anyway," Travis carried on. "When everything went down my family decided to stay put. We were way out, not a lot o' people. A QZ seemed more dangerous to my pa, so we decided we'd take our chances."

"You avoided the exterminations," Adam summed up, voice quietly amazed.

Cooper woofed in answer.

"Way, way out." Travis shared a look with Jasper, one of nightly walkie-talkie conversations between bedrooms and tree-house sleepovers because even the land line's were spotty, and days spent running away from bulls because there was only so many times you could re-watch every episode of Friends.

The exterminations were one of the worst memories Paige couldn't get rid of. They'd begun before the outbreak, back when RI-117 was dubbed a 'rabies scare' and they thought they could control the spreading. Cities were vetted first, then large towns, anything that was considered high risk. They started with the pests: rats, strays, pounds. Paige remembered her parents watching the news every night, and was glad there was nothing high risk about her small town as footage of mangled cats and dogs, shot racoons, and stomped on rats filled the screen. Her mother always told her not to look, to never blame the animals.

Resources had to be protected. Cattle and livestock were issued to never be left alone. Larger farms even paid for private escorts. Stores were guarded and deliveries checked. It should have been their first clue; Even dead, the animals were dangerous.

When the virus broke, when President. Roja made his deal with the A.C.R.D., it became all out war. Inside QZ doors were broken down, pets dragged from their baskets or killed on the spot. Paige remembered hearing single gun shots in D.C. all the time, during the day, during the night, always followed by a shriek or whimper. Not the flurry storm of a Patriot attack, or the commotion of a meagre civilian uprising. Those single shots curdled her stomach, made her shiver in her bed so much worse. One shot wasn't enough to cover that terrible scream.

Never blame the animals, Paige, her mother always urged emphatically. Yet when Paige fist laid eyes on Cooper she'd nearly put a knife through his neck.

"Them extermination crews never came near us. Probably didn't know the farm was out there," Travis carried on, the there coming out like it had no e's. "Cooper was safe, our cows and pigs were safe. My pa even found a coupa' goats wandering round and brought 'em back. I called one Needle 'cause he had skinny little horns."

His smile began to slip, like he was fighting to keep it on his lips.

"We lasted the first few years. Plenty o' work to keep me busy. Bessa huffed, Needle poked, Cooper grew bigger. But, uh... it-."

Paige knew how this part went, putting her hand on his huge arm. "We don't have to know this bit. Your farm sounds wonderful."

But Travis shook his yellow head. "N-Na, I... I wanna." His voice caught thickly. Trying for a smile twisted his mouth awkwardly. "You can't pick an' choose whatcha ya remember, or'wise they're not who they were." He cleared his throat and picked up his tale. "I can't quite remember how long it'd been. A while. My pa'd been goin' on 'bout some spoiled crops. We were more livestock than crops so our growin' fields were small. We never needed none o' that genetic modifying stuff."

"Good choice." Adam wasn't wrong.

After the outbreak, things fell through the cracks, things Paige never gave much thought to before: Fancy filtered waters, twenty one day aged meats, regularly timed indoor heating. GM crops was never something she'd concerned herself with, but when the bugs kept eating and nothing could be done to stop them, her and half a million other D.C. residents felt it in their empty stomachs.

"I always said to ole' Preston he was right keeping that artificial stuff off his crops," Jasper called from the back. "Genetically modified? Hah, Government modified, I'll bet."

Travis nodded to it all. "That's what pa said. We use'ta spray some homemade stuff to keep em off, but it'd run out and he was pissed. Lucky for me, Cooper ran off that day so I didn' have to hear him go on 'bout it."

Paige furrowed her brows. "That doesn't sound very lucky."

The noise from Travis' throat was rueful. "He was gone for hours. I had to walk cause Bessa never woulda' made it, an' I was faster. I eventually found him halfway 'cross an old field 'bout three miles out. My heart almost burst outta my chest when I first spotted him. I was scared he... y'know..." Paige did know. "But he ran at me with that tongue lollin' and I knew he were fine. Had to drag him back, though, like he dinna want to go back. It was almost dark by the time we reached... the farm."

The farm. Not home. Paige felt something sink into her stomach.

Travis swallowed again. "I called out to my parents, told 'em I'd found Cooper and he was okay. Didn't get an answer. I went through the house. Nothin'."

Adam cast a look at Paige, eyes crinkled by wincing understanding.

"I remember callin' out 'Is anybody here?'. Nothin, so I went out to the barns."

Cooper whined.

"Easy, boy." Travis stroked his golden head. "A, uh, a bull we owned... I don't know what infected it, but it was rampaging about, bloody at the mouth, spikes o' wood sticking out of its head and shoulders, one horn busted. It had got lodged and broke off in ma' pa's ribs. I only didn't get stomped cause I heard it screaming... I ain't never heard a cow make that kinda' noise before."

He trailed off, into a quiet so lonely, so alien from his usual listeners softness. Paige shivered, and the ice would not leave the back of her neck.

"It had smashed its way clean through the barn doors. My ma'... I think my ma had tried to stop it, maybe distract it from my pa'. I found her after, once I'd put a bullet from my pa's gun through that damn cow's eye." He'd never sworn before, jaw rigid.

Paige wanted to beg him to stop, but he carried on, forcing on like he had to complete the story or leave it unfinished back on that farm.

"I followed red hoof prints until it led me to what looked like a smashed jack-o'-lantern on November fourth... But I could see her hair, her hand sticking out, reachin' for me. I know if I'd been there she would'a told me to run." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring. Small and silver, the shine long gone like it had been rubbed over and over. He rubbed it now, the motion between thumb and first finger smooth and familiar. "This was all I could take." He put it away without offering either of his rapt listeners a chance to look. "I didn't stay at the farm. I couldn't... y'know?"

Paige did know. She knew too well.

"I took what I could. Used what I could from the animals and set the others free." He gave an empty chuckle. "I wrote 'bye, granma', on the dust on Bessa's hood. Me an' Cooper, we left the farm an' made our way to the closest QZ."

Paige didn't know what to do. Should she tell him she was sorry? Of course she was sorry, but how many times did Travis hear that? Did she understand? Her parents were gone too, but she'd never seen it. Hadn't smelt it. Hadn't killed what killed them and would never get to.

She looked up at Travis, wondering if there was anything she could say.

"You and Jasper walked to Kansas City?" Dependable Adam, finding the perfect question to move them on. It was certainly better than anything Paige could think of.

"I was already at Kansas. My family went there at the beginning of the outbreak." Jasper offered nothing after the terse response, other than the heavy falls of his footsteps.

Adam couldn't move them on from that dead stop. Both he and Paige looked to Travis. The blond boys sombre expression was gone, looking back to his best friend cautiously. "Uh... I met up with Jasper out in Kansas, and after we found our way to the Facility."

"Travis," Jasper cut in sharply.

"I didn't tell 'em nothin'," Travis defended.

"No. Look at Cooper," Jasper pointed past them.

The dogs head raised for the first time, tail wagging, ears up. A low rumble came from his throat, small broofs breaking the sonorous note. Travis approached his dog, pulling a brown leather lead out of his pocket and fastening it around Cooper's neck.

He stood up straight, giant shoulders squaring. "Let's get er' done."

Cooper's trail led them through the narrow criss-crossings of the town and out onto the main road. Paige ducked on reflex as she stepped back out onto the street. They were way beyond the RV by now. If she squinted she could see the other end of town, two ground story windows of a large building glowing dimly in the dark. Cooper headed straight for it but Travis reigned him back, wrapping the lead tight around his fist the closer they got.

"This isn't right," Adam murmured from beside Paige, the five of them ducked down beside a building a few hundred yards from the glowing windows. "Do you see it?"

Paige cast him a confused look. "What are you talking about?"

"Look," he pressed. "Remember? Back at the boarding school, the survival classes."

"Which one?" Paige asked. "How to escape hostile situations? Environmental assessments? Assault techniques? Weapons training? Foraging? Hunting? Crafting? Fighting?"

"Assessing!" He pointed at the windows again. "You saw Atticus sweep that truck, right? He chose it because it was wreaked. Broken. Forgotten. Not like a standing building. And he would never put a fire near a window. It was one of the first things the classes taught us."

"To survive you must master the art of disappearing," Paige recited, remembering Sergeant Jeffords begin every class with the edifice like a relgious sermon, before rambling off into the alternative making up their lesson for the day.

"So why build fires that are going to be seen?" Adam looked at the building again, the ground floor windows glowing like square amber eyes gazing out across the main street. He shook his head, brow screwed like he wasn't sure if he'd put the right amount of S's in Mississippi. "And why choose this building? A big house at the end of the main street? Lights in the windows like they want to be seen? Something's not right."

"Guys, we're moving up," Travis whispered.

"Yeah, let's go do your shitty plan," Jasper said glumly.

Paige shared a look with Adam, who shrugged but still looked worried, their thoughts falling into a shared unstable plane.

What plan?

They came slowly upon the building in staggered teams of two, Adam and Travis upfront because Jasper refused to be caught by Scavengers for Atticus. Skirting around the glowing windows, they moved down the side of the large building, under a tattered banner clinging limply by one frayed cord to the wide front door. The banner beleagueredly announced the building to be a library, celebrating its sixty-seventh year in faded green letters... four years ago. It begged the question, were the residents of Anthony mid-celebration before the party was crashed, or was the event every bookworm, wallflower or quiet soul desperate for a location kindred to their nature preparing for the party when the country made its plummeting fall?

As they passed under the windows Paige heard sounds coming from within. Voices laughing, bottles clinking. The glow from the windows was so bright she knew the crackle and pop emenating from the windows were the carelessly stoked flames. 

Adam found a door unguarded, a slip of an entrance with an ice cold pushbar, once used for deliveries and smoke breaks. He made Paige and Travis wait in the shadows, Jasper needed no convincing, while he went in alone. His signal to follow came after the longest ninety seconds of Paige's life. Crawling through the Library felt like they'd never left the alleyways outside. Bookcases crowded them in on all sides, their tops lost in the gloom and thickening smoke so they looked as tall as buildings.

"Fire's dimming."

"Feed it, then."

"Need good paper, keep the flames hot."

"It's fire. It's always fucking hot."

"Shut up about that fucking fire! I swear you haven't stopped going on about it since we came back. Keep it fed. Use the books. I'm getting cold. We're in fucking Kansas!"

"How can he be cold with all your hot air to keep him warm?" Atticus' voice, followed by a swift thwack. He groaned, then spit.

"Let that keep you warm," muttered a fourth voice. The Bleeding Man. Paige remembered he sneered when he spoke, how it seeped in and stained the words until even a yawn could give him away for being too snide.

Adam's hands shook as he reached up and plucked off enough books for them to get a peek. Jasper stayed by the door, watching their backs, while Travis and Cooper guarded another way through. Shelf clear, Paige could see the main area the Scavengers claimed, a circle of men and woman walled in by stacks of rotted and mangled books, lounging around a large fire all but one of them seemed to hate.

Her eyes found a figure shoved into the corner. Two guns tracked every attempt to bring comfort to his obviously battered body as he hunched against the wall, hands tied in front of him. Bruises mottled his face and down his neck, shifting and jumping from the fire glow across tan skin. His lip was split. One eye was swollen shut from a gash above the lid, but still he smirked up at his captors, asking smugly if they just couldn't keep their hands off him when they came to beat him again. Blood and saliva pooled close by in thick clotting puddles, and when the flames danced, splashes of orange shifted Atticus' brutalised reflection in the dark red surface.

Adam shifted to his feet, but lost his nerve and failed to slip Paige's hand. "No," she whispered. Her grip on his arm tightented as she leaned in close. "We rush in there without a plan, he dies. I think he'd rather have the few extra bruises."

Whatever bravery led Adam to the library was all but gone now. Body shaking, breathes too fast until Paige had to urge him to slow down. It took fifteen long heartbeats, but he eventually nodded, screwing his eyes shut for a moment to gather what courage remained. When he looked at her again she could see he was still afraid, but he nodded, ready.

What would Atticus do? Thinking how she guessed he would, she counted the Scavengers. Fourteen. She made special note of the ones who possessed a weapon. They all did, but only six had guns. The rest carried led pipes, bats or large pieces of wood, the tips burnt black and fashioned spearlike. She counted the windows and doors, all the ways they could get out, from most likely to be blocked to which, with a good throw of combined bodyweight and desperation, could be smashed through in a tight spot. She put it all together, listened with her ears and saw what was in front of her, and came up with a single answer: There was no way in hell they could do this without getting killed.

Atticus shifted in his corner, and from across the room and over all the voices, Paige could hear his ragged breath and a pained groan grind together in his chest. A Scavenger looked up at the sound. He was closest to the fire, yet, oddly, hunkered down in a heavy coat that covered his entire body, to the point it draped over his bent knees so that only his boots were visible. He moved like that at every noise, small reactions as if each sigh or murmur were being shouted across the room. Every time the fire dimmed he fed more books into it until reflections danced in the glass of the windows.

"How are we going to do this?" Adam whispered.

She bit her tongue, mind racing. Did Atticus have time for them to wait for the Scavengers to fall asleep? If they posted a watch could they take him out before the others were alerted? What if there was one outside? Did this library have more than one floor? Could there be more of them hiding up there?

"Paige?"

Her brilliant plan was to find Atticus. Well, they'd found him, now what?

"Convoy approaching!" White light eclipsed the orange glow of the windows, lowering as engine hum approached. Boots thumped the ground. Five indistinguishable soldiers in dark uniforms crashed by her and Adam's hideaway, bustling through the isle of the Library to surround the Scavengers.

Her heart leaped. They couldn't get any luckier! A Military search party. They'd get Atticus out and be south in two days with an escort like that!

"Shit..." Adam's voice shook beside her. "Oh, shit. Shit. No. No. No."

Fifteen more soldiers marched into the Library from the front door. Paige picked out their Captain right away, a set of four stars underlining the badge on his left breast: white lines braided into a circle to trap a backwards black R. He strode into the centre of the room, his company fanning out around him. A collective of guns pointed at the Scavengers. In the corner, Atticus lowered his face, sinking as much as he could into the flickering shadows. His cover shrank as the frail paper burned away.

The Captain eyed the fire, walking towards it and peering into the flames. "1984. A good read."

"Of course a Goamer would vibe that," one of the Scavengers spat. The Captain found the voice in the crowd, nodding to the soldier nearest him. She lifted her gun and slammed the butt into the speaker's temple.

"Small group," the Captain observed, eyes drifting over each Scavenger. "I've put Scavenger groups as many as fifty down. Are there even twenty of you here?"

"We're a trade off group. Smaller numbers to run between QZ's," The Bleeding Man spoke up, barely containing his anger. "Nothing illegal about acting outside Roja's jurisdiction."

"Nothing is beyond President. Roja's jurisdiction." The captin considered the Bleeding man. "You deal in Kansas City?"

The Bleeding Man shrugged tense shoulders, using the moment to choose his words carefully. "We trade. Don't ask where it comes from, so long as we get our share."

"Share?" The Captain barked a short, derisive laugh. He stepped away from the fire, close enough to the Bleeding Man to sneer down into his shadowed face. "You're squatting in a shithole, your number of thieves is pitifully low, and you think you get a share?"

"We're outside a QZ," The Bleeding Man said in a low voice, eyes narrowed. "A share is whatever we decide it is."

"What you give those people in there isn't a share," a voice said. It was the squatter by the fire. The Captain turned to look down at him. "It's whatever's left when you're done."

The Captain stalked towards him. Beside the Scavenger, Atticus shifted, trying to move as far from the captain as he could. "Those are Patriot words. Do you know them all? Do you support what they do?"

The Scavenger looked up at him. "They do more than you."

Fisting the Scavengers coat, the Captain yanked him to his feet so he could snarl into his face in a sudden, unchecked rage. "Do more? Do more of what? Feed the people? Protect them from those beasts? We built those walls! We keep Patriots from shooting them to pieces!" When the Scavenger didn't react the Captain threw him into the centre of the room. "Line up, now!"

Soldiers pushed Scavengers into a line, keeping them in place with raised guns. Fifteen stood before the Captain and his company. One body remained seated on the floor beside the fire.

"Up," the Captain ordered. Atticus' head remained bowed. "Up!"

Beside Paige, Adam was pleading softly under his breath, "Don't do it. Don't do it."

"Are you broken, son?" The Captain kicked Atticus' leg. " I said up!" He went to deliver another. Atticus' head lifted sharply, freezing the captain in place, leg cocked, with a stony glare. "Fucking hell..."

Around them guns and expressions slackened, wide eyes trained on Atticus.

"He's alive," a soldier whispered.

"I thought Roja woulda' had his head the second he became president," said another.

"Last I heard he was rotting in a QZ prison."

The Captain put his foot back on he ground, unintentionally taking a step away from Atticus. "What the hell are you doing here? Did you really get caught by these bottom feeders?"

He cast the captured Scavengers a suspicious look.

Atticus pulled his bloodied lips into a mocking smirk. "Company was fine till now."

The Captain smirked. "I'm sure you fellas are right at home."

"He's not one of us," The Bleeding Man explained while the Captain and Atticus glared at each other. "We picked him up a few hours ago from one of our snares. He's no use to us. You leave us our gear and you can take him."

Adam tugged against Paige's grip. Almost pulling free, Travis came up behind and clamped both hands on his slim shoulders. "They can't take him," he whispered frantically. "They'll kill him."

"Why?" Travis asked.

They watched the Captain consider the Bleeding Man's offer, before he nodded for two of his company to grab Atticus.

"If you want a quiet journey I suggest doing away with his tongue," The Bleeding Man said, smirking at Atticus.

"Goamer fucks! Don't touch me!" Atticus snarled, incongruous demeanour vanishing, pressing himself into the wall, thrashing when they reached for him.

Adam wrenched free of Travis's hands and stood, cupping his hands around his mouth. "How'd you find us here?" He deepened his voice, dropped his soft inflection for a rougher bite, then ducked back down beside Paige.

The Captain and some of the Scavengers searched for the voice. When neither side could trace where it came from, the Captain spoke up. "Our orders were to search the area for any signs of habitation. Lucky us. I decided this beat was a bust but-."

"Lucky?" Atticus snorted from the floor, cutting the Captain off.

"You got something to say?" The Captain snapped at him.

Atticus levelled the man with a perfect imitation of his own derision. "The reason we're all in this room is because we learned pretty quick that there's no such thing as lucky." The Captain glared down at him, so Atticus let a slow smile stretch across his bruised face, waiting for the words to sink in. When he saw the mark land in the paling of the captain's cheeks, the smile became a smirk. "I may have fallen into a snare, but you were dumb enough to walk into the trap."

The Captain's hand went to his gun the same moment the Scavenger in the heavy coat broke free of the line. He threw himself at the Captain, taking them both to the ground. They struggled against each other, the Scavenger kicking his way up the soldier's body. He struck his chin so hard the Captain spit out a tooth then kept on fighting, so the Scavenger took his head in his hands and drove it into the ground. He did it again, and when he lifted it for a third smack blood dripped between his fingers. The Captain began to spasm as the back of his skull cracked a fourth time against the hard Library floor. The Scavenger let his neck slump back, reaching for the Captain's belt. He passed the gun, unclipping the walkie.

"They're inside! Strike no-" His back burst apart in a shower of gore. He flopped forwards, knocking the gun from the Captain's limp fingers, body and gun clattering to the floor.

The first soldier to move made for the bodies. He checked his Captain for life, shook his head. He checked the Scavenger, throwing open the heavy coat. Blood seeped from the crater through his spine into a brown and white uniform, spilling across the floor.

"Patriot's! It's an ambu-"

Two soldier's and the library front doors became a shower of pink mist and wood chips. A shockwave of heat and force slammed Paige back into Travis' sternum. Patriots flooded in, armed and shouting, too many voices at once, none able to penetrate the piercing ring in her ears. Some of the Scavengers dropped to the floor, others ran for the exit. A woman in ragged clothes was cut down by a soldier aiming for the Patriot behind her, only for that soldier's helmet to blow apart from a Patriot bullet in his frozen stupor. The head underneath slumped forwards, like he was vomiting thick cherry soda.

Brown shot at grey. Anything else ran.

Bullets sprayed out of control along a wall inches from Atticus' head. He threw his bond hands in front of hisnface and dived from the corner, narrowly avoiding becoming a new stain on the shabby tile, only to be tackled by a Scavenger fleeing to the exit.

Jasper appeared, confussion instantly giving way to horror as he watched the blind chaos he'd no doubt heard from the back door. "We need to get out of here!"

"What about Atticus?" Adam cried over the spurts of gunfire and screaming.

"Screw him!" Jasper snapped, eyes blown wide with terror. "We are not getting mowed down in that crossfire for that jackass! We need to get Paige out of here!"

He reached for her arm. She twisted away. Travis went for a grab but Adam intercepted, getting crushed against the bookshelf in the process. She ducked and ran from behind their cover. Her mind was gone, left behind in the garden when she first came up with this suicide mission. She couldn't remember how she got across the room, how a bullet didn't strike her down before she dropped to her knees in front of Atticus, skidding through his spit and blood.

She reached for him but he reared back. Eyes blown wide. Vein in his neck throbbing. When she reached for him again he made to strike at her hand. "It's me!" she yelled over the gunfire, yelled it and kept reaching for him until his blows stopped, eyes coming back to find her. "Can you stand? We need to move!"

Leaping to his feet, hands still bound as he gripped her arms, Atticus shoved her aside into the wall. His eyes, wild and white, swept the chaos, unflinching. "I'm not going anywhere." He let her go. A soldier fell near them, struggling to get back on his feet. Atticus zeroed in on him, bound hands outstretched for the first throat. Doubtless there would be more, but Paige pulled him back. He whirled on her, roaring unintelligibly, rage in his dark eyes, bruises black shadows across his skin.

"I'm not leaving until every Goamer bastard is dead at my feet!"

He made for the soldier again, risen to a knee and pushing up to stand. The featureless helmet noticed something big with killers eyes approaching, froze, then hasitly brought the rifle level.

"Stop! Atticus, stop!" Paige pulled on his arm with all her strength.

A Patriot screamed as a bullet tore through his shoulder, blood exploding out of his back as three more shots ripped through him. The soldier jerked towards the sound, his distraction fatal. Atticus pulled against Paige, bellowing for the kill, swinging her like she weighed nothing. She moved with it, letting him shove her around into blocking his path. Planting her feet, she punched with both fists up into where she hoped his solar plexus was as hard as she could.

His whole body bent, his roar cutting into a sickening retch, spewing a concoction of blood and bile onto her chest.

She screamed right into his ear, their heads pressed together. "Stop it! You can't die for this! You can't make these reckless, stupid death wishes for a grudge!"

He stared forwards, over her shoulder, but he couldn't turn off his hearing.

She swallowed, throat raw from screaming. "There will be time."

It wasn't a promise she could keep, nor one she wanted to. But the cloud of rage lifted from his eyes, and he saw her for the first time. He gripped her arms and for a split second her heart froze with fear. Then he nodded down at the rope binding his wrists together. Clarity rushed into her and she quickly drew her knife, sawing his hands free. A second into freedom he herded her towards the door, his other hand forcing her head down.

No one tried to stop them. Doubtful anyone remembered there'd been a wanted criminal, let alone the cure, under their noses, as she and Atticus slipped under the screams and out through the wreckage of the front doors. She stumbled on the steps but Atticus kept pushing her ahead of him. He ducked into the first alley he saw, not stopping, plunging them into the darkness. Brick and concrete raced past. Shouts and gunfire faded as their footsteps grew louder, until Paige pulled her arm free of Atticus.

He whirled on, her but she was already leaning on the wall, fighting off the urge to vomit. "I... I can't run anymore."

"We keep moving."

He grabbed her arm again. She wasn't forced to run, but he had to pull her to keep them going at his pace, never slowing until the library was long behind them. When he let her go she had no idea how much further they'd gone, where they were, if they were still in the town.

Atticus paced, fists clenching and unclenching. He crossed the miniscule width of the alley in three easy strides, constantly turning his tense body around and around.

"The others-"

"I don't care about the others," he said through gritted teeth, breaths heaving.

"You'd be dead in that library if it weren't for Adam," she snapped. She'd put up with a lot from this surly jackass but she wouldn't let him dismiss the fact they risked their lives to save him. "And if it weren't for Travis we'd never have found you."

Atticus stopped pacing. "And you'd be further south and away from here. You'd be as I told you to be."

"What you told me to do would have got you killed. By Military." The last part hit something. He rounded on her. Too tired from running to flinch back, too angry with him for being too stubborn to stay alive, she flopped back to lean on the brick wall. "I'm sorry I didn't leave you to die, but I told you I wouldn't be that person. I wouldn't be-"

"Me. I know." He stepped back and rubbed his face, flinching when he pressed too hard on a bruise. He'd never looked so worn. "I think it's time we agree on some rules."

Paige eyed him warily. "Agree, or be told?"

He stood up straight in that final way of his. "From now on, you do not try to help anyone. You do not run off on silly adventures. You are going to make sure no one else finds out about your little condition. You sure as hell don't shout it to a group of Scavengers. Lastly, you do as I say. You go where I tell you. You drink what I tell you. You eat what I tell you. You talk to whoever I say it's okay to talk to, and you move on when I say to. No matter who is left behind."

He leaned his shoulder on one brick wall, watching her, while she pressed against the other. As far from him as she could get. Time to breathe and really see his battered face didn't make it any easier to look at. The bruises on his already dusky skin were so dark one eye sunk deeply into his skull. The other bulged from the throbbing cut in his eyelid. The violence inflicted on his face, creating an abraised, lumpy contrast, made him look like a toad who'd suffered a stroke. In this new ugliness she realised with annoying, undeniable truth he was unquestionably, irrefutably handsome before. Not that she would ever admit that to him. The punishment he'd taken would put any normal person in the ER. Yet here he stood, his leaning against the wall the only indication of pain.

All because of her. No, not because of her. For her. Because whatever he needed from her, it was worth it. Worth doing again.

The gash at his temple began to bleed. He ignored it.

Something skittered close by, claws on stone. Atticus didn't react as Cooper trotted into their alley, nose to the ground, nor did he move his gaze when Adam, Jasper and Travis followed. They stopped before reaching them, the silence so heavy they knew better than to break it. Jasper didn't even moan about being caught in a shoot out, eyes bouncing between the alley walls.

"Adam." The small boy shuffled forwards. Atticus didn't so much as turn his head. "Is there a place here?"

"I found one," Adam murmured, looking anywhere but at Atticus.

"Take us there." Atticus turned back to Paige, dark eyes black in the shadows of the alley. His non-swollen eyebrow arched slightly. He was waiting.

She took a breath, mustering enough energy to nod.

\- Survivor Count: Six


	13. Chapter Eleven

Adam took the scolding with polished sycophantic grace as he led them to where they’d be hunkering down for the night. Atticus acted like nothing was out of the ordinary, just two guys talking while Adam’s shoulders hunched, nodding timidly at the harsh whispers, not enough for him to turn the words around as easily as flipping a coin, words that probably had nothing to do with football or beer or proper skin and facial care - it didn’t matter, she didn’t know what guys talked about. What Paige did know was Adam was doing nothing to defend himself for saving Atticus’ life. He was playing the smart game, avoiding a fight, she knew, but his little meek and complicit act quickly went from being clever and effective to frustrating her beyond belief. She almost wanted to start yelling at him herself, but knew Adam would turn his docile magic on her like an obsequious magician.

He walked them through the alleyways, surfacing from the dark depths of the centre high street, then cutting east of where they’d left the library. Moonlight darkened the shadows at their back as they crossed through the unmarked corridors and back ways of the town, avoiding doors, ducking past smashed through windows. The sounds of gunfire petered away, every step taking them further from the main street massacre.

Paige jumped at every footstep, every crunch of glass or skitter of broken stone and wood, until Adam stopped at the backdoor of a squat two story red brick building with slanting gray slate tiles.

Atticus went in first, halting Adam with a firm hand to the middle of his chest when he moved to follow, lifting same hand in as derisive a gesture as possible to beckon Jasper instead. The lanky boy followed reluctantly. He stepped carefully over the threshold, terrified of another Scavenger popping out of the darkness branding more than an improvised cudgel. Although it meant walking the gangly uncoordinated boy through their search dance step by step, Atticus cared more about making his point than practicality: Adam screwed up, and screw ups could be replaced.

Sometimes Paige spotted either Jasper or Atticus’ silhouette pass across the doorway as they glided between the rooms. Atticus flowed from room to room in a half crouch. Jasper clomped after him, long limbs knocking against doorframes and archways. When they were done with the ground floor Jasper came back out, relief flushing his pale face from a job done, while Atticus moved to the stairs. Paige could see his form in the dust caked windows, wreathed in gloom, lycanthropic in his bowed movements as he searched for anything hidden upstairs. She lost sight of him, resigned to waiting, until his knuckles rapped twice against the window above them. Adam’s feet shifted through a beat, then a second rapping hit the window again.

Adam didn’t wait for Jasper to blanch on what the code meant, walking inside. Paige wondered how long their routine had taken to perfect, how many times the knock on the window went from one and a pause before three, three taps, pause then one, before settling on two, pause, two. How many times Adam might have stumbled before Atticus decided he’d take the point and sweep a room by himself.

The inside of the house was so dusty Adam setting the three locks on the back door shifted the lightest layer. The back led into a small kitchen, opening into a dining room through a doorless archway, but a child safety gate stained with aged multicoloured fingerprints barred their way. A few awkward tugs on the latch followed by a gentle push from Travis rolled it open with a high squeak. A large wooden table filled the entire dining area, leaving the grouplittle space to navigate the edges of the room. Three high chairs and eight regular chairs were strewn haphazardly about, thrown back as if who'd ever left this table had done so in a hurry.

While the others continued through the safety gate and into the dining room, Adam hung back to survey the kitchen. Every counter edge was capped with rubber casings, no utensils left out of a safety locked draw. He prised open the fridge, only to slam it shut, gagging into his hand from the stench of six year spoiled milk and vegetables so rotten they were puddles on the sticky plastic shelves.

Abandoned, yet undisturbed, like a field of freshly fallen snow. Not even the Scavengers had discovered and gone through this hidden away place, tucked into a street as unremarkable as the squat brick house itself.

“Upstairs,” Atticus ordered. He perched on the lowest step of the staircase, hand on the top of the doorframe so he could lean down into the dining room like a bruised chinpanzee playing on its climbing frame. Paige remembered hearing the heavy strikes the Scavengers delivered to his body when they beat him, and wondered how much pain the simple stretch caused him. His face, impassive as ever, gave nothing away.

Cooper bound past and up the steps two at a time, Travis on his heels, Jasper behind him, a thunderstorm of banging footsteps, Atticus' glare the lightening strike what follows. Paige padded across the soft carpeted floor out of the dining room. The way upstairs intersected the hall into what she guessed was a living room. Two couches were inclined towards a TV so old it had a chunky back. More rubber capped each hard corner of a coffee table, stained with more rings than the heavy, flash fingers of popped up rappers. Toys littered the floor, once bright red fire trucks faded by age, dollies and stuffed animals stained by dust. A football was popped, a heavy shoe indent flattening it.

Adam ushered her through to the stairs before she could get a good look, going behind her. He shutt the child safety gate behind them, taking the time to set the latch after Travis rattled and struggled with it. Why, she couldn’t guess, but Atticus was waiting impatiently at the top of the stairs for them.

Atticus picked one spacious room out of the four upstairs for them to share. Three of the four corners were occupied by a single bed, a beanbag chair taking up the last, tclosest to the door. A single window looked down onto the street below, locked to never open further than two inches. Once everyone was inside Atticus closed the door, locked it with a thick deadbolt, then moved the beanbag chair to block the entrance. He groaned as he lowered himself into the seat, facing the room, the beans crunching as it moulded around his battered body. Jasper took one bed, Cooper and Travis jumping up beside him. Adam let Paige choose where she wanted to sleep. She didn’t need to think about it, claiming the bed furthest from the door.

Grumbles and sighs of settling bodies, rustling of clothes and bags being removed, seeped slowly from the room, leaving behind a tense energy. Sleep was expected, but the act of waiting on it to take them stalled any eyes from becoming heavy. Jasper settled against the wall, laying his long body on its side, leaning up against the brown painted plaster. Half of Travis hung off his side of the bed, his arm dangling so low his fingers brushed the floor. Cooper wriggled his way between his master and Jasper, tail swishing up the dust in long arching fans as he rested his head on Travis’s broad stomach.

Atticus tipped back against the door, both eyes shut, but Paige knew he wasn’t asleep.

“What are we doing here?” Jasper asked when the quiet became too heavy.

“Sleeping,” Atticus grumbled, head still tipped back. “The coast should be clear by morning. We’ll move on after whoever’s left conducts their search.”

“Where?” Travis asked. Cooper scratched his neck. Paige could hear his jowls flapping in the silence as Atticus clipped his answer down to the usual monosyllabic.

“I have a plan.”

Paige knew not to hold her breath, letting it out loudly and unsurprised by the withholding. He wouldn’t tell them where they were going, even if he were walking them into another shoot out.

A shadow in front of the door shifted. Through the window at the back of the room moonlight streamed past the blinds, bars of light arcing across Atticus’ swollen eye. She couldn’t see the right, but felt it watching her with his usual scorn. A muscle in his jaw ticked.

“I have a friend in this area.” Adam looked up from the curled pose on his bed. “He won’t have left his spot in Kansas. A week from here on foot, I think. If I’m right, he can help speed our way south. He owes me some favours.”

Atticus didn’t ask if any of them were happy with the plan, if she or the others wanted to weigh in with anything. He tipped his head back again and let out a weary sigh.

Paige would take that, for now.

Without the weight of the unknown holding them hostage, it didn’t take long for sleep to take the room. Adam’s breath whispered out of him evenly. Jasper and Travis curled up on their bed with Cooper between them. The golden dog snored, but Paige liked the sound. A constant, deep rumble she felt in her stomach, reminding her of slow Jazz songs with a big heavy bass. Her parents liked those songs and she touched her dog tags at the memory. But sleep didn’t come to her as easily, nor would it. Like in the truck her body thrummed, too tightly wound with nerves as a killer guarded her only way out.

She wouldn’t sleep, not until she spoke what was on her mind. Bare feet padded softly on the floor as she crossed the room to stand beside the beanbag chair.

“What?” Atticus grumbled, voice flat and low.

Paige unzipped the hoodie and took it off her shoulders. “Thought you would want this back.”

He lifted his head, and she could see him trying to give her a suspicious look, failing with only one working eye. He took the hoodie, his hand going straight to the pocket. He only touched what was inside, reassuring himself it was still there, then pulled his hand back out.

“I didn’t look,” she confessed.

He gave her a long look, one eye narrowing as he worked through it. He decided for a shrug, wincing, shifting crunchily in the chair. “Wouldn’t care if you did.” He slipped his hand back in, passed whatever was inside from the pocket into his pack, then handed the hoodie back to Paige. “Keep this.”

She took it but didn’t put it back on. “Where are we?”

“In Kansas.”

Warming him up wasn’t going well. She sunk to the floor, keeping her distance, folding her knees under her chin. “Why this house?”

“This one is safe.”

“We passed plenty of houses on the way here,” she pressed.

“This one is the safest,” he said, watching her carefully, shifting restlessly in his beanbag chair.

“How do you know?”

He rolled his open eye, the other bulging under the swollen lids. “It’s not a hard one to figure out, Princess.” She blinked passively at his attempt to distract her. “DV Shelters like these are built to be invisible, built to be walked right by without a second look. They have triple locks on the doors, street views, alarm systems, and a place to stay for anyone needing to get away from their homes. Woman bring their kids if they have them. Lots of ways to hear someone moving about. They’re safe.”

“How did you know this was a domestic violence shelter?” The familiarity of his shorthand did not slip her attention, even when he tried to bury it deeper in his intimate knowledge of the house.

His good eye hardened. “I just know.” He shifted in the chair again and groaned, giving up on trying to be comfortable. “Are you really down here to bother me about my real-estate choices? What do you want?”

Swallowing, not sure what she could expect, she asked, “Why did those soldiers recognise you? Why were you supposed to be dead?”

He stopped his restless shifting, his good eye sizing her up. “It’s nothing you need to worry about.”

“They thought Roja had you killed. That doesn’t sound like nothing.”

Atticus sneered at the mention of the president. “Roja’s killed lots of people.”

She frowned. “No he hasn’t.”

“Tell that to the bodies in the library.”

“He didn’t do that. The Patriot’s did.” She shook her head. “Stop avoiding this. Why would Roja want you dead? What did you do?”

He stared at her, bloody lips a thin line, the muscle bulging from his jaw again.

“What? You’re not going to tell me?”

“Yep.” He moved in the beans, trying for relaxed, wincing again.

“You can’t keep that from us. What are we supposed to do, ignore you lying to us?”

“Would me telling you change your opinion of me?” he asked, blunt yet still dodging her question with a question.

She pretended to think, already knowing her answer. “No.”

He made an agreeing noise. “Then there’s no point.” He leaned his head back again. “Why waste my breathe?”

“But...” But not knowing scared her. The Roja she remembered was a man who only fought if it was for a peaceful option, who believed in redemption and saved the condemned. What could Atticus have done to make William Roja believe he didn’t deserve a second chance?

Atticus eyed her. “But...?”

When she didn’t finish her thought, Atticus groaned irritably as he lifted his head back up. She must have looked pathetic, huddled before him, trying to hide her fear in the shadows. He leaned closer, as far as the beanbag chair would allow.

She shook her head fiercely, trying and failing not to let the terrifying direction her mind was taking show on her face. He’d killed in front of her, but that fearburned out within hours of knowing him. After a day of hating him for making her think she was going to die her anger ran out and the logic her parents passed on resurfaced. He knew he didn’t have a choice, she could see it now. From forcing himself on her, to killing those two men, to letting the Scavengers take him alone.

Whatever he had to do for this fight of his, he did it.

So what had he done to President Roja?

Without her noticing her wrist was in his hand, softer then when he’d dragged her behind him through the towns alleyways. She could feel hard calluses and muscles in his fingers she’d never felt in her own, softer hands. Careful not to grip or squeeze too hard, or to touch her otherwise, Atticus pulled her close enough so he could still hold her eyes.

“What did I tell you in the RV?”

“When? The part where you called me a bitch, or when you yelled that I was stupid?” His eyes hardened some more. The two of them could do this all night, so she forfeited the battle with a sigh. “You’d die for me.”

“And I meant it. I still mean it. You don’t have to be afraid of me, or anyone else so long as I’m protecting you. We’re on the same side.” His eyes flashed, something she couldn’t name darting across before it was gone. He squeezed his fingers gently around her wrist. “I’ll get you south. I promise.”

He let her wrist go and leaned back.

“Now get some sleep.”

Easier said than done. She wouldn’t sleep, nor would she in the many nights to come on the long walk home.

“Stupid dog.”

She looked up. In the shadows Atticus shoved Cooper away when the dog tried to lie down next to him. Far away in her own head, she didn’t notice when the dog had gotten off Travis and Jasper’s bed. Cooper didn’t seem troubled, picking his way across the room, coming to the bed Paige occupied and leaping up. She smiled, letting him rest his head on her tummy.

“He’s good at that,” Travis’ voice came softly from the dark.

“Good at what?”

“Good at knowin’.” Travis lay back down and closed his eyes.

Paige wasn’t sure what he meant. Then Atticus groaned as he tried to adjust, and Cooper’s head lifted at the sound. It didn’t move again until he was sure Atticus wouldn’t make another noise or come any closer. Paige stroked his head as it lowered, much calmer than she was a few moments before.

Yeah, Cooper was good at knowing.

\- Survivor Count: Six


	14. Two Years Ago

Paige pushed herself to her knees on the cold commissary floor. Her cheek prickled hot pain from a concrete kiss, tears threatening to spill and lend their stinging touch to the raw skin.

Her assailants jeered for them to fall, laughing when she was almost up, only for the girl to kick her arm out from under her. She hit the floor again. One of the gang circled her, impossible to tell who, following the blow with a swift kick to her hip where she could not curl in tight enough to shield her battered core.

The girl sneered down at her pitiful attempts to get up, snapping her fingers as Paige got her arms straight under her. A boot crushed her back into the floor, grinding down between her shoulder blades.

"Is her highness too good to eat stone?” the girl cackled. She looked above Paige, to the boy pressing her into the ground. “Mitch ate much worse before they brought him into the centre. Know what?” Mitch pressed his foot harder into the column of Paige’s spine. “I don’t think I should tell you. It’d make your soft little stomach turn, and we can’t waste that extra food you get, can we?”

“I don’t get anything extra,” Paige gasped painfully against the floor. “I didn’t ask to be brought here!”

“So Roja picked you out of the goodness of his heart?”

The group shared a bitter laugh.

They’d seen people like her come riding in, the single kid on a bus that could fit twenty, and hated her before she stepped off. What made her worthy of the City Centre? What made her so special? No one asked how this girl and her cronies got inside, who favoured them, who they had to bribe or what acts they had to do to be let in.

Paige craned her head up to find the girls eyes. She was calling the shots, maybe she could call all this off if Paige could get her to understand there was nothing different between them. They were in this together, always had been. She was part of their Us, not a phantom Them they focused their malice against the world on.

But the girl was already watching her, eyes giving nothing back,missing what might have once helped Paige. No spark of pleasure at the pain she was inflicting. No flecks of remorse. The empty familiarity of how she looked at Paige, whimpering on the floor, was as chilling as the cold stone under her scraped palms. With the harsh comissary light over head, the girls eyes were two black, lightless pools in a sallow, empty, lifeless face.

If Paige asked, would the girl tell her how many people had been on her bus?

The longer she held the girls knowing gaze, poisonius futility trickled deeper into her blood. “I didn’t ask them. I didn’t want to be here.”

The girl‘s empty eyes moved over her. “No... But they brought you in anyway.”

The boot left her back. Relief flooded into her aching chest, pain ricocheting off her first gasp for air. They hauled her to her feet, forced her arms behind her back. Crowding in front of her, fighting for the best view, they gave her the curtosy of a good look at her attackers.

Two boys in front, a third behind restraining her arms so she couldn't fight or run. Breath raced from her. She couldn’t hold back, couldn’t control how scared she was. The girl advanced, arm cocked back, fist clenched. She demanded first blood.

The punch caught Paige in the stomach. A second opened her cheek before she’d finished doubling over. The one unmarred by stone, her pale nose bisecting the stinging graze of one beating, blood trickling from the other. The girl laughed, flickingaway the mess Paige left on her knuckles as she took a step back.

One of her goons immediately filled the space. He grinned sluggishly, cheek scarred, missing a tooth where a punch to the mouth would have sliced skin between knuckle and enamel. He’d know how to hurt her.

He lifted a meaty fist. Paige closed her eyes.

A thump and wail. They weren’t hers, punctuating the commissary in place of the breaking of her nose. The hands dropped her wrists.

She opened her eyes, the wince a permenant fixture within the mess of her face. The brute with the scarred mouth lay on his back, hands moving in dazed circles as, like Paige, he tried to figure out what just happened. There were only two bullies left of the original four. The one who’d been holding her arms, the only one she hadn’t gotten a good look at, was gone entirely from the commissary.

Cal stood between her and the last boy and the girl. Where they hunched low and dangerous, he stood, tall and calm.

“Stay out of this, Roja,” the boy spat. His lip was bloody from a warning shot.

Cal shook his sandy head, for once uncovered by his beanie. “Can’t. Heard my name. So I came to make sure no trouble was going down in here.”

He wasn’t afraid of them, and watching their own personal horror dawn on the last two members of the pack gave Paige an unsatisfactory moment of pleasure. It fueled their anger. But beating up Roja’s son wouldn’t go unpunished. They’d be lucky to get a stay in the Sandbox if they left so much as a bruise on him.

The boy glanced at the girl, unconsciously licking blood from his lower lip as he weighed his options. It wasn’t a hard oppertunity to grasp. He backed away. “No trouble.”

The last of her muscle retreating, the girl sneered, lips pulling back and uncovering yellowing teeth. “You can’t hide behind daddy’s back forever, Roja.”

Cal spread his arms wide, looking in all directions like there wasn’t the slightest threat to keep an eye on. “Do you see him here?”

“Don’t be smart, Ro-”

“My name is Cal.”

The girl surged forwards. Cal moved one foot back to plant himself, giving her no ground instead of jerking away, into what she undoubtedly planned to be a punch to his face. Instead she landed inches from him, stumbling, expecting space where there was none. She flinched back, momentum interrupted, feet skidding awkwardly against the stone as she tried to realign.

Cal held out his hands, palms up. ”How about we all walk away? Let’s forget this ever hap-"

She hooked him, punching the words back into his mouth. Her lackey’s gasp echoed the meaty thump. Cal’s head whipped sideways, almost dragging his body with him before he got his feet right and steadied. Motionless, he stared at the floor, working his split lip between his teeth as he collected his composure, spitting foamy pink onto the commissary floor.

The girl smirked when he straightened back up.

“That really wasn’t necessary.”

She attacked again. Instead of accepting it, Cal pushed her blow to the side. The girl tipped off balance, righted, pounced again.

Cal deflected a second time, taking a step back. “You see this is pointless, right?”

When the girl tried again, faking high before ducking low for a sucker punch, Cal ducked with her, moving into her attack to stall the momentum, and pushed down on her head. She tumbled to the floor, squawking as her legs tipped over her shoulders and sprawled like messy starfish on her back.

Cal knelt beside her, out of reach. “I didn’t want to do that, and no one is going to hear how this ended.” He looked over her head, to the lackey sticking around to watch the show. “From me, at least.”

Cal held out his hand for her, words steady, soft. Unable to hide the gentle cadence his father was known for in his public addresses. “So, is the trouble all done?”

Pride forbade the girl from accepting his hand. Slinking away to lick her wounds, she left them be, throwing one last yellow sneer over her shoulder. Her lackluster lackey trudged after her.

Door swinging shut, Cal turned to inspect Paige. He frowned at the graze on her cheek, then at the cut on the other, taking his beanie out of a back pocket. “That looks like it hurts.”

Paige looked pointedly at the blood on his lip. “I could say the same.” She waved away his hand when he tried to dab at her cut with his hat. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Cal arched an eyebrow, shoving the beanie back into the pocket. “Totally. I could see you had that covered, I just couldn’t resist playing hero.” His pause before he shrugged made her think she was supposed to laugh. “I don’t like bullies, especially bullies who beat up girls.”

“You beat that girl up,” Paige pointed out.

“No, I pushed her,” he corrected, then gestured over his shoulder to the boy still lying on the floor. “I beat him up.”

Paige jumped back, remembering for the first time he was still there. “What did you do to him?”

“Nothing he wasn’t about to do to you.”

It took a few slaps, until a great snort ripped from the boy’s bulbous nose. He sprang into a sitting position, looking around, blinking slowly. First at Cal, at Paige, then back to Cal, mouth a yawning black pyramid with that gap at the missing tooth.

Cal couldn’t hide his smirk. “Is it all coming back?”

The boy stumbled up, hands slapping table tops as he ran from the room like the mouthy drunk stumbling from the fight he misguidedly starts and has no intention of finishing, pushing on the door until sense returned and he remembered it was a pull.

Cal’s face creased as he giggled at the slowly closing door. “Guess I hit him a little too hard.” He looked up at her, lips turning down ever so slightly when he noticed she still wasn’t laughing. “So, what’d you do to piss them off?”

Paige touched her father’s dog tags, spilled from her shirt when those thugs grabbed her and dragged her into the empty commissary. “They smelled fresh blood.” She copied his shrug. “I had it covered.”

“I could tell.” His eyes lingered on the dog tags.

She turned her back to him, walking around one of the commissary tables, seeking the distance it put between them. “What were you doing here?”

“I already told you.”

“So you hang out by the commissary waiting for girls to be beat up?”

Cal’s Boarding school issued boots thumped onto the seating bench of the table, then onto the table top. He sat down there, feet resting on the bench, elbows resting on his knees. Amusement twinkled in his cobalt eyes. “Shall I mind my own business next time?”

“It would save you a few bloody lips.”

Cal’s eyes sparkled, and Paige realised that, despite defensive barbs and sarcasm, despite her less than steller appreciation of his intervention, despite every attempt she made at turning her abused, bleeding face from him, he was enjoying this. Enjoying her.

“So I get nothing for bravely fending off your attackers?”

And, despite how hard he was trying to be cool while b’s made him wince over his split lip, Paige found herself enjoying him as well.

She turned to face him. “You’re the one who seems to do this a lot, what do your damsels in distress usually offer?”

He opened his grinning mouth wide enough to reply.

A sharp bang filled the commissary. Cal was up and sprinting for the kitchen before her head finished turning towards the noise. Shoulders clipping, his running momentum stronger than her surprised turn, he knocked her one way while her legs were still moving the other. She spun clumsily against the table, jarring her funny bone, blonde hair flying in her face.

By the time she looked up Cal was gone, and a red faced member of the Guard was storming through the thrown open Comissary doors, towards her.

“You there!” he bellowed, pointing at her sprawled across the bench. “Don’t you run! Don’t you make me chase you!”

Paige swept her golden hair from her face.

Curtain lifted, the Guard’s torrential pace stuttered, the furious flush leaving his cheeks in an instant. Shadowed in the door way, behind the Guard, lurked the girl and her lackey. His lip wiped clean. Her sneer gone. Expertly crafted pitiful looks on both their faces.

The Guard cleared his throat as he came to the table, gesturing stiffly for Paige to take a seat. She perched on the corner with her hands in her lap, fingers caged together, tilting her head up to the Guard expectantly. He knew who she was. No doubt most of the Guard knew who she was, or at least knew to watch out for a girl of her description. She knew this dance, knew she could change the steps a thousand different ways, and it would always end in another dark corner, another waiting circle of thugs hunting the favourite of the City Centre.

The guard held up a finger, an officer of the Washington Qurantine Zone, a protector of the stronghold to what was left of their country, asking her for a moment as he unclipped a walkie-talkie from his shoulder.

“Guardsman Bale, reporting in. I’m at the Commissary, investigating the disturbance.” A crackled voice Paige couldn’t make out responded over the com in his ear. “No, the incident’s under control... The girl’s on her own... I assume her accomplice ran off.”

No names given. The thugs were smart. They were also lying, and, for a briefmoment, Paige burned. Shaking, unfairness crushing down on her chest. What probably took those two begging pleas for action, would take her only a few words. They couldn’t get to Cal, not a chance. But they’d do what they could to hit Paige, more than they already had, with anything they could.

Even when she sat, bleeding before the Guard. Even after they’d cornered her in a hallway and dragged her here. Even after she could name them, identify the faces of the people who attacked her and bring them down for what they, what anyone else, did to her. Even when she was right, favouritism stripped her of justice, stripped her of safety, stripped her of pride. Stripped it all down, until nothing was left but wrath.

Paige realised why Cal ran. All the Guards and Presidents keeping them comfy and safe, choosing them to listen to. It would always, and only, make things worse.

“Her name?” The guard glanced at Paige. “Paige Emry. Yes. Her, sir.”

Yes. Me. She surpressed the sigh always accompanying those thoughts.

The static crackled for a long while, the Guard listening to graveled orders. The girl and her lackey in the doorway leaned in further, trying to hear what was being said; About them. About her punishment or brief reprimand. Anything they could get.

The fidgety snap for the guard to get a move on was getting harder to tamp down. The longer she endured his mono-sylabic rejoinders to the static, the more she longed to get up and test the boundries of this cursed immunity. What was the point of not doing the crime after suffering the consequences.

Then the guard clipped his walkie-talkie back onto his shoulder and the box crackled no more.

Paige sent a purposeful look to the door behind him before he could start speaking. She didn’t want an audience for this. Maybe, if they didn’t see the pitiful show at reprimanding then release, they’d spread around the school they were the ones who got Roja’s favourite in trouble. It might quell the jumpings, beatings and torment until the end of the week.

The guard turned to where she indicated. When he saw the spying children he took a purposeful step towards them. Three inches of menacing stun-baton appeared from his belt.

The bullies scrambled over each other to get out of the doorway, bolting from the comissary, footsteps echoing. The Guard shook his head, muttering something as he dropped his baton back into its sheath, crossed the room, and shut the door. It sounded along the line of ‘fucking kids’, to which Paige begrudgingly agreed.

Stopping in front of her, the Guards dark blue uniform almost moulded him into the muted walls of the room, if not for the darker pads of armour on his chest, stomach and shoulders popping him from the decour like a black capital T, while his pale, uncovered face dotted the skinny i underneath. Inside the school he wasn’t required to cart around the bulky headgear, though the blank cnavas of the helmet and goggles would have served him well now. Turmoil slashed like an open wound across his face as he wondered how he was supposed to discipline Roja’s golden girl without risking his own punishment.

Follow your orders. Paige wanted to scream at him. Give me the regular treatment for children who disturb the peace, aggravated assault, breech of curfew. Hell, I’m in the comissary out of mess hours. Anything! Forced into so many brawls, she knew the official terminology as if they’d let her read their training books. The only thing she lacked experience in were the punishments, but she’d take them, if only to prove she’d never asked for anything less.

“Normally an infraction of this level would result in labour as punishment. Anything worse, and we’d have no choice but to have you heading straight to the Sandbox, else let you remain a risk to the other students.”

Liar. Paige knew the dye was cast, likely before he’d even contacted the crackle over the radio; from the moment she drew her golden hair from her face. All she could do was hold back whatever form her derision would take over his assumption she was the risk. Not at him, but at herself for letting this happen.

“But... because the other assailant is missing, and the kids who claim you assaulted them only have their word against yours as proof, I can let you off with a warning.”

Their word against hers. Two words against one. A claim, a witness, and an alibi they could each back up for the other, though that might be giving the girl and her lackey too much credit. Boarding School discipline regulations would demand a trial, at least a chance for both sides to be heard before principle Stalleton. From what information already filled the investigation, Paige would be cleaning the bloodied patrol humvees with a toothbrush and a rag before the end of the school day.

If she were any other kid.

“Could you maybe... not let me off?” Paige asked, to the Guard’s great surprise. She rolled on, blinking up at his startled expression with big blue-green eyes, pulling on her sweetest, southern voice. “I‘ll do the labour. I’ll clean your big cars, or-or scrub the Commissary floors ‘til they sparkle.”

She’d take scrubbing floors over licking stone, or fearing the corners on her way to the bathroom.

The guards eyes shifted away from her. “I-I don’t think President. Ro-“ He cleared his throat, remembering in that moment he was supposed to be the one with the authority here. “My superiors won’t approve that.”

She didn’t care what the Guard, what Roja, what the whole damn world, would approve of, or if they favoured her like they favoured Cal. This wasn’t fair, and if she knew it, so did everyone else.

The Guard shuffled on his feet, taking a step in, then back out from her. God, it was like he was waiting for permission to speak. How spiteful did they believe Roja became if his children and chosen were scorned? How spoilt did they believe she was? Roja wasn’t her father. For Christ sakes, her own father hadn’t coddled her this badly.

Finally, the guard decided on what he wanted to say. “Miss, do you know what stands between the Feral’s and the people living in this city?”

“Which layer?” Paige asked petulantly. This whole afternnon had left her with a swelling cheek and a bitter taste in her mouth.

The guard returned her sulk with a sour look of his own. “Do you know what stands between the Feral’s and the people living in the entire city?”

“A giant wall?”

He ignored her sarcasm. "President Roja, and every other soldier putting their lives on the line for the citizens. Roja keeps the order, and us soldiers keep your lives safe. Should you really be taking that service for granted?”

Paige wanted to remind him he was a Guard of a children’s Boarding school cosied up in the City Centre, pretending the balance of power wasn't weighted on how good her mood was. She didn’t say it. That service was how this all started.

As her silence stretched the Guard shifted again. He moved to the bench and seated himself beside her. His fingers drummed annoyingly against the table top. “Your transfer says you from a sector outside the Centre, right?” he asked, looking around the commissary at the grease stained tables and outdated kitchens which half cooked their food.

"A year ago,” Paige answered, eyes trained straight ahead.

The Guard made a soft noise in his throat, nodding to himself. “I hear it’s pretty shit out there.”

The Centre wasn’t much better for Paige. She hadn’t been jumped in the outer sections. Well, no more than the usual loner who hadn’t learned to move with a pack or properly stash their rations. But correcting him would only drag this conversation on. All she wanted right now was a door between her and the world, a place she could close her aching eyes and sleep.

“I mean, there’s rationing for a start,” the Guard sighed dramatically, like he, too, thought Paige wasn't aware of what went on outside her own world. He rolled his head back on the stalk of his neck so he was looking up at the ceiling, each rambling sentence a grate against Paige’s thinning nerves. “I hear they’ve taken to halving the public’s distributions. And on top of that, more packs of Feral’s keep attacking the outer sections. I know that’s what they’re there for, but those soldiers are supposed to shoot them down before they get the bait. That’s the whole point.”

"I thought soldiers had to know about the city you’re supposed to be protecting,” Paige hissed through clenched teeth.

The Guard remained silent for a long moment, but his irritation was palpable from the way he sucked on his teeth then let out the breath a little too forcefully. Good, maybe she’d annoy him enough into not letting her off easy. Antagonising him certainly held more pride than playing the simple minded southern-belle.

"Do you know of the rebel group dogging the Quarantine Zones? What they like calling themselves? A Militias? Like making every Guard and soldier miserable even more. Ringing any bells?”

"The Patriots.”

Paige knew them. It was impossible for anyone not to know them. They hacked broadcasts, raided Military parties on the roads, stole food shipments for their cause to undermine President Roja.

It was rumoured no one knew what their leader looked like. He descended too quickly, leaving no one to brag of being the first to bare witness. From the soft drawl lapping across hacked radio bradcasts, Trojan Roth manifested in Paige's mind as the mild mannered, quiet sort. Maybe small, probably used to being overlooked, untila formidable intensity, nothing his cinderblock voice could muster by itself, quieted the chaff and chatter, and he could speak.

“Yeah. The Patriots.” The Guard sneered the name. He made no attempt to hide his disdain of how far their fame spread. “The true lovers of America. Shit. Whole damn world thinks they’re the second coming. Thinks they’ll be our salvation.” He spit onto the floor.

Paige looked with equal disdain at the glob of phlegm. She ate in this room.

“They’re too fucking stupid to realise that’s where all the rations are going,” the guard rambled on, unaware of her disgust, or choosing this to be his small flex in front of Roja’s favourite girl. “Stolen from their starving hands by the Patriots, then given back once they join their ranks, all so they’ll hate us more.”

“Kind of clever, if you ask me.”

The Guard whirled angrily on her. “I didn’t.” Calming himself enough to pretend to relax back against the table, his elbows rested on top. He gave her a long side eye, contemplating, his sharp turn from angry to interested making Paige want to squirm. “What do you think of those Patriots?”

Paige considered her words past the immediate - full of praise - answer she wanted to say, only because she knew it would piss the Guard off. “I believe they’re creating trouble where trouble already exists. So they are clever for taking advantage of this situation. But we’re not ready for change. We’re still figuring out how to fit back into the world.”

She wouldn’t believe in a cause bringing destruction for destructions sake. What she shared now with the guard was the only true thing she’d said throughout the entire conversation, and it appeared the answer pleased him.

“See? Aren’t you grateful President. Roja brought you into the City Centre, away from all that?”

Paige swallowed, forcing her jaw to unclench. “Yes, I am.”

“Good!” Slapping his hands on his knees, the Guard pushed himself to his feet. He turned to Paige, smiling. “Now, you should be heading back to your dorms. Don’t want to be breaking curfew, now do we?” He grinned like they shared a secret. “Wouldn’t be much any Guard could do to get you out of that situation.”

Paige glared at the floor as she stood, not trusting herself to look the Guard in the eye for fear of revealing the level of her gratitude. She left the commissary, and as much as she wanted to leave, she almost asked the Guard to walk her back to her room. The girl and her lackey fled the scene, but the corridors were dark after lights out.

But not all her foolish pride had been beaten from her, so she walked herself down the corridors, the rusted overhanging lightsturned off for curfew. She flinched almost every time she turned a corner. Brown walls and classroom doors accompanied her trek, copper and dark blue tiled floors a clashing yellow-brick-road to the front entrance. With a single step out of the corridor and into the carpeted foyer, the building split from hastily erected extensions of classrooms, the commissary, and fenced in exercise yards, into the rickety boarding facility which made up the rickety body of the school. From the outside it looked like the dry husk of an old bird sprouting two brand new linoleum lined wings.

Paige climbed the wide wooden staircase to the third floor, wishing elevators had been in existence when this big old bird was designed. She stared at the floor as she passed under the framed pictures of past graduates, turned soldiers, taking extra effort to avoid looking at the ones with black printed memorials under their graduation date plaques.

When she made it to her room she flopped backwards onto her bed without taking off her shoes. She didn’t turn on any lights, not wanting to wake the girl she boarded with. Coming in after curfew was a sure fire way for a new rumour to spread throughout the school: The Emry girl gets to walk about after curfew!

If being immune to a Sandbox level offence cemented into the running of half-truths already circling around her she’d never be safe in the halls again. She’d have no choice then but to go to the Guard, becoming what they all thought of her.

She didn’t want to agonise over that humiliation. So she thought about the Guard, how important he tried to make himself feel through her. She couldn’t stop remembering the helpless rage of her bullies, how they survived their own lonliness and hurts by making her pay for them. They put targets on her back though no first shot was ever fired. And she couldn’t stop thinking how Cal hung onto her every word, found some of them funny, even when she wasn’t trying to be.

Sick of feeling used, Paige focused on conjuring the image of her father’s smile. It was easiest when she fixed him to a place, so she took herself back, to their last trip to the Zoo. She’d caught it in the space of a heartbeat, wide-eyed at the exhibit fence, half turned to see if her parents were as amazed by the same Rhinos they’d seen so many times before. Instead, she’d caught them captivated by each other.

The glimpse she’d caught was too brief. She’d been stupid to turn away, cheeks burning hot with... what? Too young then to understand why she’d felt embarrassed, she felt as much an intruder on their fragile moment then, as looking back on them now, years later, in a pathetic seach for some form of love.

In an instant, the memory turned to crushing melancholy.

She reached for the dog tags resting on her chest... Her father’s dog tags resting on her shoulders. Her father’s dog tags resting on the back of her neck?

Paige lurched into sitting, her hands clawing at her neck, her chest, under clothes, in her hair. She flung the bed sheets away and threw her pillow across the room, searching frantically for the familiar cold steel.

Her father’s dog tags were gone.


	15. Chapter Twelve

Atticus never thought he'd be back here. Entering Kansas was hard enough, once out, he promised himself he'd keep as far away as he could, and once he stepped onto plains soil in search of the cure he promised he'd never return to the backwards part of the state he was currently leading the cure and her annoying duo of hapless boobs through. It wasn't where it'd all started for him. Those cards were drawn years before, an entire lifetime before coming to Kansas, before even the outbreak, when he'd been naive enough to think he would make it so long as he kept fighting against the rest of the world. None of that blindness was left in him now. But Kansas held too much of a different him. Of what he'd become once he'd been stripped of everything left.

But this was bigger than him, so he sucked it up, and came back to the only option he could think of to get this cure back to her labs.

Supposedly.

He didn't know if the rumours were true, or if he believed them. When he was honest with himself, he didn't think much of it, didn't spend hours agonizing over it likeothers he'd known. During his time in prison, then with the Scavengers, and then with Rogers and Jones after that, nothing but a pack on his back and time to think, he'd heard many different retellings of the girl with the cure in her veins; She'd been born with it. She was a government engineered experiment. She'd escaped from a bunker in Area 51. She'd gotten bitten and it screwed up her blood. She was a cancer survivor and the chemo messed her up inside. The worst he'd heard, she was an alien, so human rabies only made her stronger due to her extraterrestrial sensitivities.

Atticus looked at Paige as she trudged through the grass ahead of him, chatting amiably with Jasper. Probably something along the lines of ice cream sandwich sizes or where SPAM really came from. Jasper screamed of those deluded nutbags who thought SPAM stood for Sliced. Processed. Alien. Meat.

Did he think Paige was an alien?

If she's an alien, she's definitely from Venus, Atticus thought grudgingly. Those rumours could have mentioned she was a loud mouthed, spoiled, pesky Princess who attracted trouble worse than spilled soda brought ants. But the rumours could have said she was a hobbit or a giant talking tree for all he cared. She was with him now, and he was the only person who would see her to that Facility in Louisiana.

They'd left Anthony eight days ago, their process slow in the beginning, his injuries taking their sweet time to heal. Too many people used roads, and now, with everything but Adam's pistol was gone, they were too vulnerable. Paige countered his decision to stay off raods with the annoying point that trampling through the grass would slow them down and leave a trail. He'd bitten down on the impulse to call her Princess and whatever else came to mind, and calmly explained why his plan was better. When she remained difficult, he reminded her he was the only one who knew the direction they needed to go to reach his friend, and he would lead them how he damn well pleased.

She'd shut up after that, and he suffered his grass stains and bug bites in triumphant, mildly uncomfortable silence. The wading did slow them down, and when Travis nearly turned his ankle on a hidden rock, Atticus almost reconsidered. But he'd won this one and he wasn't letting it go. She had two arguments on him already, three if he counted the dumb dog. They'd walk his way or limp quickly.

Adam shuffled to walk beside him, his pale eyes on the three ahead of them. "You're set on this idea?"

"We're practically on his doorstep and you pick now to open your mouth?" Atticus didn't take his eyes off the path ahead. "You have a better one?"

"No," Adam said, singularly and calm.

Atticus' scowl deepened. Ever since they'd escaped the Scavengers it seemed Adam didn't tread so lightly around him as he used to. Jasper tried to talk to him about his stupid theories on prison slave labour rights. Travis kept trying to get him to pet his dumb dog. It all felt chummy and he didn't like it. He didn't have time for chummy. He despised the idea they were giving him pity wins because he got his ass-kicked to keep them from getting caught. If they wanted to apologise they could start by acting like capable human beings. The ass kicking wouldn't be necessary.

"I'm not sure Quill will be okay with strangers," Adam said, wringing his hands together.

"Quill's barely okay with his friends."

Adam tilted his head. "Besides you?"

Atticus shook his head. "Maybe."

Up ahead Paige laughed at something Jasper said.

"She seems... happier.," Adam mused, taking note of Atticus watching her.

"Just as loud," Atticus grunted without any real spite. He was being an ass now, he knew.

"You guys aren't fighting," Adam commented, adding on a quiet, "...as much."

"Because she finally got it through the thick mass of blonde I'm right." He knew he'd made the right call on how to travel. He'd found her in the open on train tracks after all. She knew he was right. She was not giving in to be nice.

Adam made a small noise at the comment.

"She doesn't talk to Quill."

Adam looked up at him, amused and curious all at once. "Paige knows this is important. If anyone needs watching it won't be her."

He didn't disagree. He also didn't take chances. "It's better if she keeps quiet."

Cooper exploded through the underbrush, Travis chasing him, laughing and fake barking. Jasper whooped him on, then burst into laughter when Travis tripped and fell sprawling into a bush. He sat up, shaking a yellow head covered in grass stems while Paige rushed to make sure he wasn't hurt. Cooper tracked back and licked his master's bemused face.

"You know what, none of them talk to Quill."

When spindly trees with pale green leaves began sprouting like pimples on a high school freshman's face he knew they were getting close. The forest was sparse, the trees tall, yet he felt old walls closing in, bars slamming shut, locks turning, and for the first time in years, Atticus was nervous. He kept to the back of the group, one worded bearings acting as directions. If Adam noticed he didn't give any hint, moving up to talk to the others.

Cooper loped between the trees, disappearing through high grass thickets, twisting directions, running back and forth, and peeing on every rock or stump he passed. Sometimes Travis disappeared after him, and Atticus wouldn't be surprised if he was doing the same.

Granite spires pierced the sky, the east watch tower looming above the tree tops. Spotting them, Atticus felt the air be forcibly sucked from his lungs, and the closer they got, the more the others began to notice. When they broke through the forest line and beheld the long grey building bracketed by two watch towers at the end of a winding gravel path, the first thing Atticus saw was Cooper cocking his leg against the twenty foot chain link barbed wire perimeter fence. Halfway up the fence, a plastic sign as big as a billboard hung, faded in the sun, one corner dangling from where the metal erroded from its hook.

"Where are we?" Jasper asked, looking warily at the looming building ahead of them.

Paige, head tilted back, read from the sign. "Compton Federal Correctional Institution, Kansas State."

"This is a federal prison," Jasper said, like repeating it would somehow change it. He looked at Atticus. "This is your prison?"

"I don't think he owns it," Adam murmured.

Paige was staring at them. Adam hunched down under her eyes. Atticus refused to acknowledge her.

"You want us goin' in there?" Travis asked. He slipped Cooper's brown leather lead into his hand.

"That's where Quill is," Atticus said, ignoring their gawking. "The prison was abandoned years ago. Most inmates would have left, and they all did, except for Quill. He holed up inside."

Jasper looked at the high fences and solid walls. "I can see why."

"How'd you know he's still in there?" Travis asked.

"Quill might have been the only man in the world who enjoyed solitary confinement. If he wasn't forced out, he'll be in there." Shouldering the strap of his pack, Atticus didn't bother waiting for the others to follow as he moved towards the path.

For once he wished Paige would talk, and the thought alone racked his irritation even tighter. It would no doubt be something annoying, but at least it would tell him what she was thinking. He already knew what she thought of him, and he didn't care. But he saw it in her face when she read the sign. She'd pictured his time away in some small jail in some small town, cooling off for the night before being sent on his way with his tail between his legs. The moment she'd read Federal he knew she was adding it to her reasons not to trust him. What really pissed him off was she would use it to ask him questions again, questions like why the soldiers recognised him. You didn't get thrown into a Federal prison for jaywalking, and he wouldn't be so dumb as to assume she didn't know that.

The way up to the prison was split into two sections of gravel path. The first wound its way around the grass incline up to a security perimeter for incoming and leaving vehicles to be searched. Once through the double gates the path straightened, cutting right up the middle to a large front entrance, splitting one huge paved courtyard into two. Abandoned exercise equipment filled the yard to the left. Weights, dumbbells, a few deflated balls, all littered the dusty ground. A pile was being formed against the fence, Quill's half assed attempt at clearing the space. One lone basketball hoop, missing its net, stood sentinel over the mess. The other courtyard was turned over, rubble freshly tilled, dark earth crumbly and baking in the hot sun. A garden, of sorts. Quills best attempt at one anyway. From the fence Atticus could see green carrot tops, a barren patch where some roots would be deepening into the ground, potatoes maybe, and a few other bits of plant sticking out of the ground which he couldn't name.

"Do you think this friend o' yours would mind sharin' his food?" Travis asked, longingly staring at the garden patch through the chain link fence.

"Let's convince him to get us out of Kansas first," Atticus mumbled. They reached the end of the gravel path, but he stopped Jasper from going up the steps to the front entrance. "We'll go round to a side door. Quill isn't fond of guests."

"Wouldn't the front door be better then?" Paige asked, speaking for the first time since laying eyes on the prison.

"That's the first place a guest would go," Atticus said, moving off the stone steps.

He headed east, along the buildings shadow, trailing his fingers along the wall as he walked. It scratched beneath his fingertips before crumbling away. How long did the world have to be over before this building collapsed to the ground? When it did, he'd be sure to come back and piss on the rubble.

Beyond the stretch of wall they circled around the watch tower and headed to the back of the prison, only their way was halted by grass thicker than strands of taffy, unkempt and overgrown, somehow worse than all they'd walked through before. It tangled their legs, tripping them up with every foot rise. Stones were deliberately scattered to stumble them, Travis yelping when he stubbed a toe. Atticus missed his machete, wishing he had it now to hack a path.

They could get into the building through the east exercise yard. Across the waist high jungle the chain fence was partially intact, clamps fused crudly to try and shut the gap opened by weather and decay, easy enough to reopen with a little force.

They struggled their way across, the grass so thick in places Travis hoisted Cooper up into his arms and stumbled on.

The corner of fence attached to the gate was loose. Sloppy work from Quill. Better for them. With a few hard yanks, Travis managed to pry it free of its clamps and get it high enough for Atticus to wriggle underneath. Through to the other side, he stood to take the weight and hold it up for the others.

Paige crawled under first, followed by Adam. Jasper wriggled his lanky frame through the hole without touching the sides, then Cooper trotted past. Travis let go, leaving Atticus to hold the fence alone. He looked at the hole, looked at himself, almost twice its size. Hunching into his thick jacket, he covered his face with his hands, then barged through the sharp points, coming out the other side unbothered by the red gouges across the backs of his hands, one on his cheek where he couldn't quite cover. A spear of wire caught Atticus on the belly as he dropped the fence. He felt the hot line of blood, but cursed as he pushed a finger through another rip in the perfectly serviceable shirt.

Neglected as bad as the walkway, deep gouges in the earth pocketed the yard, leaving huge piles of crumbling dirt and rocks scattered everywhere. The equipment Atticus once used to pass his exercise time had weathered poorly after years of winds, storms and baking sun. Cheap dumbbells and mounted bars, where he'd done pull ups until he tore a muscle in his arm, were weathering away one chip of crusty rubber and flake of steel at a time. His arm ached in the cold, yet now he could indulge in the pointless sense of victory he felt over a rusty bar which looked one bird taking a crap on its line from cracking in two.

"Oh, shit!"

Jasper skittered away from one of the huge pits of earth, back arched like a frightened cat, face pale. Atticus hurried over, reaching for a machete no longer there. Snarls began punctuating the shortening spaces between his heartbeats. Paige, against his order to stay put, followed, drawing her kitchen knife from her belt loops.

Inside, speared like a pincushion from sharpened fence poles, snapped and growled a definitely stuck Roamer. Long metal spikes pinned it through the left shoulder, the left leg, and its right side. Blood on the tips had long dried to a goopy black. The beast clawed and spat up at them with one arm, the other dead at its side. Its good leg kicked.

"What the hell is that?" Jasper panted, still white from his scare.

"Quill's handy work." Atticus guessed the Roamer was skewered two days ago, its movements sluggish, and growing weaker.

Whenever something broke or stopped working in the prison, the Warden never called for a repair to fix it. He called for Quill. Under the table, he paid Quill in extra meals or secluded showers, another pillow, some exclusive entertainment if Quill requested it. Liking the payment, and maybe the work since he was often pulled away while everyone else was enjoying their yard time, and by extension the bulk of their socialising, Quill always made sure whatever he fixed didn't work for long.

Looks like things really hadn't changed much. Atticus frowned as the Roamer continued to shriek. "Walk in a line from now on, step where I step. There could... There will be more traps like this."

And, he was sure, the job, like this poor bastard, wasn't finished.

Single file across the yard, they traced Atticus' footprints in the dust. Travis put Cooper on his lead, to be extra safe. The shade of the prison washed over Atticus as he reached the door. Stopping in front of it, he straightened up, squaring his shoulders. And stayed that way, waiting for it to be opened.

Until Adam moved up past Jasper and tentatively tapped his arm. "You can open it yourself." He did his best to keep the others from hearing.

Cursing himself for falling into old routines, Atticus shoved roughly on the door. He forgot himself in his embarrassment, recklessly charging through without checking. The click registered too late as, close enough to clip the underside of his chin, a net full of concrete blocks and metal pipes disappeared upwards.

"Look out!"

Adam pushed past Paige, rushing through the door to shoulder barge Jasper forwards as the cage slammed down. The gangly boy shrieked, skittering from the edges. Once belonging to a cell door, the metal bars were welded crudely to the metal slat roof, their bottoms sheared to a lethal point. The sharp steel would have cut Jasper in half.

If Atticus still had his machete he might have been able to pry their way free.

Paige and Adam ran around the sides, meeting in the middle. Adam took the bars in his hands and shook, trying to free them. But Quill would have built this to last.

"How do we get you out?" Paige asked while Adam pulled and yanked, green eyes running over the structure, trying to locate a weak spot.

Reaching through the bars, Atticus pointed upwards. "A net flew up as the cage fell. It's probably acting as the counter weight."

Paige didn't wait to be told a plan. Leaving Adam with them, knife drawn, she ran across east-block's lunchroom, skirting overturned tables and splintered metal chairs, and up the thin laddery staircase at the far end. Taking the steps two at a time, she reached the metal catwalk boardering the edges of the room. Travis watched, tongue between his teeth like a squishy pink stress ball. In the cage, Jasper breathed deeply, trying to calm himself down. Cooper's pants matched the heavy breaths as he strained against the lead keeping him from following Paige. Atticus lost sight of her when she turned at the cross section and ran towards them along the high walkway, the cage roof cutting off his view of her.

"What's she doing?"

"She's climbing up the maintenance ladder," Adam said, head tipped back, turning slowly as he followed her movements. "The counter weight's hanging a few feet away from it." His brows screwed together. "I don't know how she's going to reach- shit!"

Atticus' heart leapt into his throat. He threw himself against the bars, trying to pry his head through so he could see. The cage shook violently, jumping a foot into the air, bars clanging. High enough for Atticus to get his hands under but still too heavy to lift.

"Paige!" Adam cried towards the ceiling.

"Whao!" Travis yelped, starting forwards, halting. Shock gripped his stunned face.

"I'm alright! I.. made it!" Excited panting punctuated each word.

"What's happening?" Jasper wailed, the same moment Atticus snapped, "Where is she?"

"She jumped the freaking gap," Adam said, hands on his head, grinning with Travis like a pair of maniacs.

Atticus wasn't as impressed. In fact, he was damn furious at her recklessness. "Do not get yourself killed, Princess!" he yelled through the bars. He could picture her dangling from the counter weight, pleased as hell with herself, not realising how stupid she'd been. The suspended cage juddered as Paige hacked at the rope. For a moment he feared she was cutting at the main support rope while she clung to the net, like some human Wile e. Coyote. Then, blocks of stone and metal pipes rained down from the ceiling, shattering on the floor.

"I've almost got it!" Paige cried from above.

A door creaked. The long echo of rusted hinges, suspended in the air, came from the far end of the room, leading the walkway into the upper level of the eastern cell-blocks.

Growling, faint but growing closer, hushed Paige's sawing.

Atticus could hear the Feral breathing from across the block, deep and heavy. Even with Jasper's heaving pants right next to him, the deep, growling breathes roared in his ears.

The Feral sniffed. Once. Twice. Would the dust and stale air hide their scent? His grip on the bars whitened as the Feral continued to sniff, the door creaking again as it pushed its body through.

If it came to the edge of the walkway and discovered them they were done. The beast came closer. He could see the top of its head. Standing on two feet, he decided, one ear torn off, the other twitching, swearing it heard something coming from the room. Atticus wondered, twisted as it was, if he would recognise an old cellmate or guard.

"No!" Paige's gasp bounced off the walls as a pipe scraped, slipping from her hands and dropping from the net to clang against the floor in front of the cage.

The Feral screamed, charging for the steps. But it couldn't fit its huge frame through the metal safety rails, so it leapt from the top of the walkway. Rubble and discarded pipes shook as it crashed to the ground, pace never breaking even as the wrist on its left hand did. Beyond the open door, more shrieks and roars thirsted for blood and six more monsters burst from the doorway.

Adam scooped up a pipe and threw it to Travis, grabbing a shattered block of stone from the floor in the same sweeping movement and hurling it at the charging Feral. Catching it on the knee, the blow sent the beast crashing against the cage. Atticus grabbed it by the back of its head and slammed it against the bars. It roared and snapped, a huge fang snagging in the bars, breaking off as Atticus pushed it back and did it again. Its eye burst, blood seeping through metal as its skull cracked between his fingers and the bars. He didn't stop until it collapsed completely under his hands.

Adam and Travis hefted their pipes, Adam with both hands like he was about to step up to the plate, Travis with one while he gripped Cooper's lead with the other, swinging the weapon like a broad sword at the hoard of Packers.

"Get us out!" Jasper screamed to no one. "Help us! Get us out!"

"Anytime, Princess!" Atticus yelled up at Paige as he crouched and gripped under the cage. He pulled until he thought his arms would wrench out of the sockets, then pulled some more as the Packer's spread out around Travis and Adam.

Blocks of stone began to rain down, now with direction. Paige caught a Packer in the head, its skull exploding into a cloud of pink mist while the body crumpled to the ground. Five to go.

"I got it!" she cried.

"Get another one!" Atticus snapped, voice strained as he kept pulling on the cage. "Jasper, stop crying! Help me!"

But Jasper blubbered helplessly, his twitchy, distracted puppy of a personality overwhelmed by terror, pressing as far back as he could get from the five screaming Packers.

Travis caught one with an upward swing so hard he took the bottom half of its jaw off. When it screamed the sound echoed, empty bone grinding where its jaw once opened and shut.

Adam swung in wide arcs at the two Packers trying to close the circle around him. Stone and metal rained down. Paige pushed a pipe out of the net straight down, spearing through the back of a large Packer, knocking it to the ground. When it staggered to its feet the long pole wobbled between its shoulder blades. It clawed at its skin, shook and leaped, trying to buck the spike from its back.

The cage pitched upwards again, barely a foot. Another and Atticus could crawl through.

A long clawed swipe wrenched Adam's pole from his hands, sending it skittering across the ground. The Packer's he'd been keeping back advanced together; one moved to the side, cutting back behind him, the other with the spear through its back coming straight at him.

Atticus wrenched at the bars, howling, screaming, as the Packer's closed the space.

Rearing up, the beast struck, claws arcing towards Adam's undefended back. He turned, threw up his hands the same instant the Packer's chest burst into gaping hole.

Atticus heard the familiar click-click in the echo of the blast as a second shot racked. Another defeaning blast cracked the air. The jawless Feral shrieked as its leg exploded. It collapsed, clawing at Travis from the ground until the blond giant drove his pole through its skull. When he let it go the pole stood upright.

A figure covered in mismatched riot gear thundered down from the walkway. His face was covered by a helmet, a cloth tied around his mouth. He'd sown metal into the spaces between the gear but the heavy plates didn't slow him down. He battered past the two remaining Packer's, their claws bouncing off his armour. One dove for the fleshier Travis, while the speared one stayed on the man. It lurched at him in lopsided pounce. He spun, driving the butt of his rifle into its nose. Bones shattered like toothpicks. He pivoted around the shrieking animal, then slammed his gun like a baseball bat into the spear sticking out from the Packer's back. Skin tore like a wet sponge, the spear tip punching through the Feral's stomach. Blood gushed from a dark, fleshy sack speared through the pointed head.

The geared man moved onto the cage without breaking stride. Shaded eyes landed on Atticus through the bars, eyebrows above shooting upward.

He lifted the rifle.

The gun went off. Jasper screamed again. The cage flew upwards, a shattered pulley-gear and ropes crashing to the ground. The man grabbed Atticus by the arm and hauled sideways, stomping past him and grabbing Jasper.

"Move! Now!" he yelled, muffled by the mask, and flung the boy after Atticus. He ran after them as the cage rocketed back up towards the ceiling, smashed against the roof, then crashed back down to the ground.

The figure moved, quicker than could be believed under the weight of the riot gear, rounding onto the back of the Feral caging Travis against the wall. A metal pole was all that stood between the blond giant's neck and gnashing teeth. Until the armoured man came up from behind and grabbed it by its neck. Roaring, he threw the beast with all his might. It landed by the shattered pulley, shrieking as it went to stand, but the plummeting sack of rocks and pipes crushed it before it got to its knees.

Blood bubbled out from under the rubble.

Atticus froze, staring at the pile of stone and gore. He looked up at the walkway, searching for Paige, then at the pile again, his heart hammering in his chest.

No. Not after all this.

"Head down! Feet Moving!" the man in riot gear yelled, shoving Atticus towards the stairs. No time to think. Travis and Cooper at Atticus' front and the man in gear at his back, they ran. They got to the top and Jasper headed for the door to the east cell blocks. "Not through there!"

The man raced past them and slammed the door shut. It shook with the weight of bodies flinging themselves against the wood. The man in gear ran ahead, around the walkway to a door Atticus remembered the Guards coming and going through.

Paige, lost in the maze of grey corridors, turned to the sound of their rabid pace. She was bleeding at her elbows, hands and arms. Without stopping the man grabbed her and shoved her through the door. He bolted it once they were all through, but Atticus knew a flimsy deadbolt wouldn't stand long against Packers.

Charging through the hallways of the guard barracks, slats of sunlight shed squares of light down the corridors from the slanted windows above, onto beds unmade or completely stripped. The roars and shrieks of Packer's followed them, the door they'd left behind splintering then bursting open. Their resucuer in his gear cursed, banking a hard right and ripping open another door. It led out and down a set of metal stairs, opening onto a balcony. In the hall below Atticus spotted the front entrance to the prison where, above the double doors he'd stopped Jasper from opening, another cage dangled. The man charged down the balcony steps and into the main entrance hall, ran for the west cell block entrance and threw open the heavy steel security door.

Jasper made it first, then Adam, Cooper and Travis following. Up above on the walkway, Feral's streamed through the east barracks door, hunting their prey down the steps. Atticus pushed Paige ahead of him, getting her through the door, the man in gear shoving him through after her. He landed on his knees, the door slamming shut behind him.

Their samaritan sealed it, barred it shut then pushed a table placed nearby in front of the door. He worked through their heavy breathing, thick boots stomping.

Atticus fought to regain his breath as Paige helped him stand. He took her arm, but pushed off her hands, turning the limb over to see the deep scratches on her hands.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," she said, her own breathing laboured. "Messed up landing on the walkway when the net fell. Your friend didn't give me much warning."

She nodded behind him. Atticus faced the man in gear. Jasper trembled, Cooper growled, Travis stood tall and shaking. Adam watched the room carefully.

Atticus shook his head at the armoured man. "Quill, you took your time saving our asses."

The armoured man pulled his helmet off as he turned. A pair of small hard eyes glittered furiously above the neckerchief tied around his mouth, two black coals in a smouldering face.

One hand cocked the rifle.

Two levelled it on Atticus' face.

"Any of you move, I blow his head off!"

\- Survivor Count: Seven


	16. Chapter Thirteen

The gun held steadier than Atticus’ breathing, trained dead straight at his head, unshaking.

Quill didn't seem to blink, to breath. Thick black whiskers spilled from the bandana wrapped around his mouth like a silk swaddled porcupine. He ripped it off and threw it away, the gun never swaying from the jerking movements. A pale hairless scar split his bottom lip, years healed, a scar Atticus remembered him getting. He’d rigged a shower to redirect the toilets during an inmate’s wash time who’d been harassing him. He thought he was being sneaky, but the entire prison knew only Quill could have done it. Later, during his library time, Quill got jumped, and never rigged another flusher again.

“Are ya’ bit?” Quill’s voice ground like an angry rockslide.

“No,” Atticus answered, responding to the simmering violence with as flat a voice he could muster.

The Leaver clicked back on Quill’s gun. “Did. You get. Bit?”

Up close Atticus could see the rifle was an aged Leaver Action. If Quill fired with less than a foot between his face and the barrel there would be nothing left of his head. “For God’s sake, Quill, you saw me in your damn cage!”

“I saw you gettin’ swarmed!” Quill yelled back, the rifle tweaking in his hand when Travis moved to clutch Cooper’s scruff. The gun jolted, Quill’s eyes going wide when he realised there was a dog on his side of the locked door. “I saw all you gettin’ swarmed! None of you move!”

“They weren’t bitten." Atticusforced his voice to stay calm. His eyes flickered to Paige as Quill’s gun swept over Travis, then Jasper, over Adam. Every muscle locked as it landed on her.

“And Cooper ain’t infected!” Travis insisted, pulling his dog behind him when Quill’s gun swung back to him.

“They’re bleeding!” Quill bellowed, noticing the blood dripping from Travis’s leg, beading on Adam’s shoulder, trickling down Paige’s elbows to join the scrapes on her arms and hands.

“They’re just scratches!” Atticus stated as firm and emotionlessly as possible. He could feel the others coming apart behind him, rushing towards the finish line when Jasper began to snivel. Quill would not be calmed and he was ready to pounce on him if he had to.

“They’re bit!” Quill roared, his finger on the trigger, his gun swinging back to aim at Atticus.

The instant the gun was off her, Paige ran, scooping up the first weapon she could, a chair leg splintered at one knobbly end, and ran at Quill, bringing it down on his arm as hard as she could. Quill screamed, his rifle slipping from fingers seizing with pain.

Atticus dove for Paige, wrestling the piece of wood from her hands. “Put it down!” he snapped, wrenching it free from her. He spun to face around, holding the chair leg out and away.

Quill whimpered, cradling his arm against his body.

“Quill-,” Atticus tried.

“What the fuck?” the large man shrieked as he held his arm. “She hit me!”

“You were gonna shoot 'im!” Paige yelled, her accent coming out thicker than usual. Atticus hadn’t considered getting his head blown off would upset her so much.

“You broke into my house!” Quill tested his arm, twisting and rolling at the elbow. Atticus fought the urge to roll his eyes, remembering how Quill would check his pulse after walking up some stairs, demand he was getting dementia if he forgot something. Years later it was still annoying.

Paige regarded Quill like he was a bug and she wanted to find another bit of wood to squish him, so Atticus gave the one he was holding to Travis. If she went for it all the giant would have to do was hold it above his head. “Keep that away from her,” he instructed, voice tight, then handed Paige off to Adam. “And keep her away from him.” Quill was still snivelling when he turned around, and he doubted there couldn’t be a worse time to ask after this. “I need a favour.”

“A favour?” Quill drew himself up, gaping in outrage, his arm forgotten. “You break into my prison and set off everything I laid down in the east block. That little bitch tries to take my arm off-”

“Don’t call-” Atticus started.

“I barely hit’cha, ya’ big baby!” Paige snapped, pulling at Adam’s grip. Travis traded the chair leg to Jasper and went to help Adam hold her.

Cooper’s tail wagged as he watched.

Quill's eyes spat venom as he looked between Paige and Atticus. “She keeps giving me shit and I’m gonna give her something to scream about! You think you can stand there and ask me for a fucking favour?”

“I think I more than earned it." Atticus stepped in front of Paige. Maybe if he couldn’t see her Quill would calm down a little, hopefully the same for her as well. “All the years I spent watching your back in here, yeah, I figure I’m owed.”

“Owed?” Quill spat, insulted by the notion that anything Atticus could want hadn't been fulfilled by his company. He jabbed him in his chest with a thick finger.. “Now you’re just talking shit! You woulda’ been shived in your first week if I hadn’t taught you all I knew!”

“When you found time between keeping your ass hidden in the library or kitchens!” Atticus jabbed him back, his fist curling back, ready to exchange blows. They shook at his sides as he fought to restrain himself. “Look, I only need this favour.”

“And then you’ll want another, and another,” Quill muttered, shaking his head. “I ain’t risking my hide for a favour. I don’t owe you shit.”

“Just the one favour, then you’ll have one on me.” Likely he'd be dead by the end of this, but he wasn't going to mention that now.

Quill rumbled disapprovingly in his chest, eyes narrowed in on Atticus under heavy brows. “What’s the favour?”

Atticus gestured to Paige, her shoulders held firmly in Travis’s meaty paws. “I gotta get her south.”

“Her?” Quill asked, jerking his head towards Paige. “The her who tried to break my arm? No fucking way.”

“You just said you’d help us,” Atticus said, his voice growing angry again.

“I said I’d help you. That brat ain’t getting shit from me.”

“Mister,” Travis piped up. “If you keep sayin’ the word shit so much, ma dog’s gonna poop in yur house.”

“If that mutt so much as squats I’ll have a new hat from his fur!” Quill snapped.

Travis’ eyes hardened, blue going grey in silent fury. Even Atticus knew not to threaten the dog by now. The giant could likely rip Quill’s head off with his bare hands if he really wanted to.

“Forget this,” Paige straightened regally in Travis' grip, brash, snorting fury disappearing in the time ot took to push her shoulders back. She tilted her chin up towards Quill, the same way she tilted it at Atticus when she found her ground in one of their fights. “He can’t get us anywhere. Leave him to fiddle and tinker his little toys, we’ll find another way south.”

“Shut it, girly,” Quill snapped, his face reddening in an instant. He turned his back on her, looking at Atticus. “It ain’t that easy.”

Behind him, Quill missed Paige raise an eyebrow slyly at Atticus over the burly mans shoulder. His eyes stayed on Quill, but the corner of Atticus’ mouth twitched upwards, his small, deferring nod lighting her eyes in triumph.

“Why isn’t it easy?” Atticus pressed, focusing back on Quill.

Quill’s hands jerked up, trying to grasp the right words out of the air. “Getting anywhere!” he finally exclaimed. “Anyone that ain’t Military can’t use roads without gettin’ harassed, so get them to take her south. Problem solved.”

“No Goamers,” Atticus answered the half-assed suggestion icily.

One of Quill’s heavy eyebrows crooked upwards, the other flat, a smirk designed to flare tempers blooming out of the deep creases in his skin. “I forgot about your grudge wi-” He cut himself off when he noticed Atticus’ face, and the curious faces of the strangers standing behind him. “I forgot you always had issues with the man.”

“So offer me something I can use,” Atticus said through gritted teeth.

“Something you can use.” Quill cast his eyes to Paige for a moment, like she could hold the answer, then sneered at her like it was one he didn’t like. “You want to get her south without Military help? Then ask yourself, who else could move like them?”

Atticus’s brows scrunched together. Leading questions were his least favourite form of conversation. “I don’t know.”

Quill slapped him upside his head, a swift thwack he didn’t see coming until his ear throbbed. “Wrong answer. Think again.” Atticus glowered at him but didn’t try to smack him back. “Who would be close enough to keep tabs on the Military? Who would know how to get past them? Who would jump at the chance to get their hands on their supplies in exchange for getting the girl there? I’m sure you could swing that kind of trade, so who would want all I just described?”

“The Patriots,” Atticus answered, realising as the words left his mouth Quill was right. Wherever the Military went, the Patriots followed like shadows. They would know routes, numbers, locations. Every member from Captains to Lieutenants, and every green Private they snatched from the QZ’s or pulled from the Sandbox. Comings, goings, how armed they were and, most importantly, how to move around them unseen.

Only there was one problem.

“What Patriot would take a risk like that just to hand some girl over to their enemies?”

“I dunno.” Quill sneered. “Find something worth their while.”

He already had it. Trouble was, they’d never give her up once they found out.

“They’d never do it.”

“One might,” Paige whispered, her voice flinching, as raw as Atticus ever heard it. When she saw everyone was looking at her, she straightened again, though this time the wall surrounding her was frosty and closed. “His name’s Cal.”

He almost felt the need to ask her what was wrong, but from the way she refused to make eye contact with any of them he knew it was pointless. Yet the question nagged him: how did the Princess of the End of the World know an enemy of her precious President. Roja?

Quill looked pleased for the first time, and from the stiff way his cheeks lifted, Atticus was sure it was the first time he’d smiled in years. And at Paige, who looked uncomfortable with the praise. “Well that’s good. You have an inside man.”

“What do we do with it?” Atticus asked.

“There’s a large Patriot settlement on the other side of Kansas city, south east towards Kentucky. That's your best bet at finding a lead on Hal.”

“Cal,” Paige bit, regaining some of her steely, Quill-reserved, antagonism.

“Don’t care.” Quill gave Atticus a pointed look. “There’s your way south. Get out.”

“Your favour is up when you get us through to Kentucky,” Atticus said sternly.

“Like shit it is!" Quill snapped, his cheeks reddening. “I ain’t risking my hide taking you to Kentucky.”

“I’ll keep that hairy ass safe,” Atticus grumbled, adding Quill and his hairy ass to the list of people he’d somehow gotten roped into babysitting.

“Oh, you swear?” Quill mocked, unconvinced. “That makes everything better then. On what, jackass?”

Atticus shrugged. “My life.”

Quill snorted. “I don’t give two shits about your life. Neither do you. Swear on something you actually give a damn about.”

“You got something like that?”

Quill raised a bushy eyebrow. He wouldn’t make him say it, not in front of the others. But those small eyes did not waver, the scarred lips set in a determined line. Understanding only went so far with Quill. He had to hear it be put into the world, made real.

Atticus took a deep breath, shifting the bag on his back where the weight of his promise moved and settled. “I swear on her.”

“Her?” Quill questioned. He didn’t look at Paige.

“Her.”

Quill looked like he wanted to argue, and Atticus was ready for a long haul. He knew he’d only have to wait until Quill’s feet began to ache, and they would, they always did. After that he'd argue for five more minutes for the sake of arguing. They were already approaching the end.

A reluctant growl forced its way past Quill's pursed lips. “I'll take you as far as a smugglers hideout. They move shit through QZ’s. With the right payment they’ll move you.”

“You want us to go through a QZ?” Atticus thought he’d made himself clear. No Goamers.

“You go through with the smugglers in a night, or you waste a week making your way around on your own.”

It was as good as he was going to get. Reluctant, closer to fuming, Atticus nodded. “When do we move?”

“Morning. Quicker I can get you outta my house the better. Not quick enough, but it’s a long walk.” Quill looked him over, then at the four standing behind him. “And you all look like shit.”

“Charming,” Paige spat.

“You want charming, go find a Four Seasons," Quill muttered, turning away from them. "This way. Don't touch my shit.”

Atticus didn’t look back as he followed Quill further into the west cell block. With any luck they’d all assume who he’d sworn on and leave him be. But Paige wasn’t giving him crap, and whenever Jasper wasn’t talking it was because he was putting a new theory together. His gut rolled with unease, not so much for the wild, ridiculous ideas he could count on coming from the straggly boy. More the off chance he could guess something a little too close to home. A small part of him hoped Paige was saving it for later, a time uninterrupted by Quill and the opinion she didn’t ask for. A bigger part wished she’d keep it to herself and leave him alone.

Quill marched through the block, his familiarity and pace suggesting he didn’t care if they were actually following him or not. Tables were pushed to the side, blocking most of the cells, creating a long wide hall down the centre of the mess. Some of the tables bore maps, or bits of metal Atticus couldn’t make sense of. Quill’s tinkering most likely.

The unblocked cells were all open, but as Cooper stuck his nose into one filled with overflowing boxes of grain and seeds, Quill hustled back and slammed it shut. He looked ready to kick the dog away, until Travis sidled up, smiling wide with eyes that didn’t blink. Both bore down, refusing to give ground. But as Quill spread his burly weight out, widening his shoulders, puffing out his chest, Travis didn’t move, except for the congenial grin widening across his bluff, sun kissed face.

Atticus was almost impressed as Quill backed off, stalking down the block.

“Like what you’ve done with the place,” Atticus‘ voice echoed in the huge hall. It hadn’t done that before, not when hundreds of other voices were there to drown him out. Now the place was a skeleton of what he remembered. “I thought you‘dve kept to our cell in East Block.”

“You saw what I did to East Block,” Quill grunted. He began to climb the narrow metal stairs to the walkway above. “This is my house now. I’m not going back in that cage.” He puffed with each step, following a path identical to the walkway in East Block, to a room hidden at the very back of the walkway. He threw the door open and almost slammed it behind him, remembering at the last second there was someone following him.

The guards barrack was definitely more spacious then the five-by-ten cells. Bigger than the slim door let on, the room let out into a wide space containing six beds placed along the wall on each side. Two at the very back were tied together, the blanket on top twisted, the mattress underneath sagging under a heavy indent. There were windows out into the west courtyard, and, at a glance as he passed by, Atticus saw another garden planted, recently by the looks of the freshly turned earth.

“This is my room.” Quill moved to the strapped bed and sank onto it, shoulders popping as he groaned. “Don’t touch my shit,” he repeated. “don’t ask stupid questions, and we’ll get on fi- Hey!” Jasper froze, mid squat as he prepared to sit on one of the beds. Quill stood, stomped to a pile of clothing that he rummaged through, and tossed Jasper a pair of grey combat pants and a pair of boxers. Atticus guessed they were a part of the do-not-fit pile. “You, go change.”

Atticus had smelt when Jasper’s bladder let go in the cage, but even he wasn’t cruel enough to point at the dark stain covering the boys crotch, stretching down his legs.

Jasper flushed, scuttling towards an open doorway with a cracked toilet visible in the corner, shutting the door behind him.

Atticus sank down on the bed closest to the door, pulling his shirt off, sighing at the cool relief as the humid prison air washed over his bare skin. He fished the baseball cap out of his pack and placed it over his eyes as he laid his aching bones down, tossing his shirt onto the pack. He adjusted, hissed at a spiking pain in his abdomen.

“What is that?” Quill hissed, attention drawn by the sound.

Atticus’ eyes landed on the gouge in his shirt. The fence must have got him deeper than he’d first thought, the sweat and fading adrenaline of the day a double down on the pain he now found himself in. “Your shitty fencing job.”

Quill opened his black whiskered mouth.

“You should fix that,” Paige cut off, before he could start another, draining argument. “If we got through a hungry enough Packer probably could to.”

Unsure whether she was mocking him, or genuinely concerned for his security, Quill scowled, then shut his mouth.

Atticus eased down again, slower this time, gritting his teeth against the sting until it faded.

From there time passed him in jumps, for he never truly slept. He never did, not for years. He would come in and out of reality, murky headed, bleary eyed, his head a fog of exhaustion. He was woken briefly by someone throwing a pack of dried jerky onto his stomach. Through an incoherent curse of paim, he put the jerky aside for later, too tired to eat.

The time passed.

Another, he came to because Cooper was sniffing at his pack, trying to get a look inside. He sent him away with a light shove, not trying to incite Travis’ wrath. He’d learned by now. Loud threats and waving fists were all bluffs when made by the giant. Too gentle for his own good, but Atticus’ insides went cold at the calm, thin look he’d given Quill when he’d threatened the dumb dog.

He rolled over quickly to avoid the boys eyes.

Retreating back into the sheets. Fighting to stay away from the world for a few more minutes. But he did not dream. He never dreamed. He knew if he did he would wake with pain sharp and hot, and tears on his cheeks.

He was woken again by Paige and Quill yelling at each other over how much water she was using. If Quill was letting them wash Atticus made a mental noteto scrape the crusted layers of dirt, blood and sweat off his skin. Hopefully Quill had some steel wool in his shower rack.

A small part of him wondered if he and Paige mimicked the bite-each-other’s-heads-off fighting, before slipping back into oblivion.

He craved distance only sleep could give him, but it had to be measured. Too close and he wouldn’t go down. But if he slipped too far from his way, well, he feared he’d never find it again.

When he woke again, he was awake, and knew he wasn’t going to slip back under. He’d gone as far as he could, hidden beneath sleep for as long as he could and kept the quiet at bay. Unfortunately, safety was temperamental as the tide, coming and going beyond his control. No one could sleep forever. The depth always thinned and soon he’d be treading shallow water when all he wanted to do was sink.

He tore the cap from his face. Darkness inked out the strip of high windows, pale starlight barely giving an outline to the occupants of the room. Four lumps filled four single beds, the sounds of soft breathing being eclipsed by heavy snores filling the room. Atticus couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept for so long, but he also couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept in a real bed. When he stood he didn’t ache, he wasn’t stiff from cold. He still groaned, because he always found something to complain about, and he’d heard people complain a bed could be too soft.

He kicked his shoes off. Fishing a hand into his pack, not to pull out his discarded jerky or don his shirt again, but instead one of the water bottles, and padded silent and shoeless from the room.

Moving through West Block was different. He was used to doors being on the opposite sides for East Block, and quietly feared any door he opened could end with a swarm of Feral’s. Luckily Quill’s paranoias meant a house locked tight; each room held its own specific purpose; to hold boxes, to store food. Clearly marked by a word or symbol carved into the wood, and three deep gouges which looked suspiciously like claw marks, crossed out by a huge X, was easy to interpret.

None of which Atticus gave a second look to in his search.

He found it eventually, a door left unmarked in a home so meticulously kept, catorgarised and lived in. Even to Quill, organised bordering into obsessive, giving even their old East block haunt a purpose, this piece of the prison wasn’t worth using, worth identifying.

The barren door opened to a cramped hall stretching a familiar sixty paces, a busted metal detector at the end leading him into another, more spacious room with padding laid into the floor. He was unsurprised by how little Quill changed the West Block gym. Their hour for exercise was the one time of day Atticus could never find the man. Fine with him. He didn’t want Quill’s whining distracting him then, and he craved the space now as, like with the East Block courtyard door, he fell back into old routines.

He was used to only having the hour, and the weights were always most coveted, usually taken after being shuffled across east blocks prisoner corridors, through West, and into the regularly occupied space.

Now, he had all the time he could want.

He started with his chest, muscles he hadn’t been able to put focus into in months straining as he lay back on the bench, rubber cracked under him, lifting the metal barbell over his chest, bringing it down then back up. He didn’t bother counting, repeating the reps until he couldn’t physically push anymore. He gave himself a few seconds to breathe, then stood up and worked his shoulders, heaving the bar over his head and up, over his head and up, until his arms were so tired his hands refused to grip the metal. He let it drop to his thighs, cupped in shaking fingers and sweating palms, switched to a pull motion and worked his back. When the bar dropped from his limp grip to clang to the stone floor he began to squat until his legs burned.

Warm-up done, he added the first load of weights to the bar and started the whole process again.

Quiet couldn’t find him when he worked, he’d learned, and he couldn’t risk it taking hold and stealing his focus when something could go wrong at any moment. Those spaces between focusing on where they were going, if they were going to eat that day, sparing water, watching for Feral’s; it always kept him busy. Fill every gap. Give no leave for his head to wander. Will her to hold on. Put everything into keeping her alive.

Forgetting would make it too easy. No. Forgetting would mean he had a choice. Pain gave no choice.

Pain hid under years of scars. They’d fade to lines. He’d eventually stop noticing, but each line would be another victory for that other, quiet side. If he forgot, they’d win. His scars wouldn’t heal. He hid them behind another door and only ever looked at its black surface, reminding himself they were there, before finding something new to fill the quiet.

He’d given Paige a hard time, but having her bumbling oafs to take care ofserved at keeping his mind from going too quiet. They were a pain in his ass, but even this scraping at the bottom of the barrel gave purpose to them.

He paused on his fourth round, the weights almost bending the bar by this point. Breath laboured in his chest, muscles aching sweetly, like finishing the labour, building that fence, or spending a day emersed in sex and sensuality. A sharp, sweetly realistic, contrast to the claws of pain in his skin from the sweat trickling down his skin, into his cuts. He brought his water to his lips, making sure to only take small sips to avoid cramp.

I swear on her.

On me, Tic? Came an agelesssweet whisper from the quiet.

Water went down the wrong pipe. Atticus coughed, spluttering as he banged his chest. Fuck Quill for giving the quiet hooks to pick the locks. The bastard knew he was doing it too, and probably enjoyed getting under his skin one more time. Suddenly Atticus didn’t feel quite as bad for forcing him to leave his home. How they’d survived prison together, Atticus couldn’t have said. It made sense then. Quill had his pull with the guards. Atticus had a reputation to make sure no one got jealous of the arrangement. Now his last friend in the world was just some asshole that could get him south, and Atticus was just some asshole who needed to get south.

He needed more distraction.

One hour bled into several. Lifting the bar became push-ups and chin-ups, then burpees when nothing else was left. Before he knew it, the room was filling with pale dawn light from the slatted windows high up on the walls. They’d be moving at sun up, but he was soaked in chilled sweat and still wanted a shot at that shower, so he refilled the half empty water at the still functioning water fountain and made his way back to the guards barrack.

Halfway down the block, something tinkled from above. He froze, looking about. It was still too dark to make anything out and whatever made that noise sounded small. If he’d been wearing his boots he would have missed it, and almost missed the frustrated grunt coming from above.

He looked up, the same instant white light bloomed out of nothing. He shielded his eyes against the suddenness of it, a star breaking down and bursting into a new sun. Boots fell softly onto metal as whoever was on the service ladder resumed their descent.

“Who’s that?” Atticus demanded, blinking black spots from his eyes. He heard a feminine yelp, a shrill gasp, a boot sliding off metal. The light jerked violently. “Princess?”

There was a series of laboured breaths from above. “Seriously? I could have fallen to my death and that woulda’ been the last thing I heard.” She gripped the ladder for dear life, legs twisted into the rungs for extra hold.

“You’re the one stupid enough to climb a ladder in the dark.”

She didn’t answer, focusing on safely reaching the walkway. Stooping down at the foot of the ladder, she plucked something from the floor before making her way to the stairs, lantern held out in front of her. She took the steep narrow stairs slowly, so slowly Atticus perched himself on top of one of the tables to wait.

Stopping in front of him, she held the battery powered lantern towards his head. “I had a lantern. I wasn’t in the dark.”

He rolled his eyes, pushing the lantern away before she permanently scorched his retinas. The plastic surrounding the bulb was warm, she’d been up thereprobably a long time. “I thought you were still in the barrack-” He remembered the four lumps on the beds. “Cooper’s on your bed.”

“That’s where I left him,” Paige confirmed, shrugging. But her eyes didn’t roll like he expected. Green flickered hummingbird fast between his chest and stomach, like she couldn’t decide which plane to land on.

“Why?” Atticus asked. He couldn’t understand her fascination with that stupid dog.

The question brought her back, eyes locking brazenly with his. He’d never met anyone so infuriatingly unadverse to direct eye-contact. “I like him close to me while I sleep.”

She regarded him, something closed in her eyes he couldn’t read. Instinctively he knew it was about him. Why else reveal it was there? He took an immediate dislike to it, so pretended to stretch his back. His chest wasn’t even fully flexedbefore her cheeks were red, locked eyes opening in unexpected fluster.

She broke their contact. He counted it as a win for him.

“Where did you get this?” Atticus asked, gesturing to the lantern before his little manouver became a problem, which, especially regarding them, would become a fight. It wasn’t a talent he was proud of, until it became useful.

The lanterns pale light bathed them in a small circle, closing the rest of the world away in black. Only the pale bubble could remind it of the life it owned. Paige‘s etherial fairness became deeply pronounced, like an elfen princess bathed in moonlight. Ever the copper penny fallen from a careless grabbing of change, the magic barely touched his own tan skin.

She shrugged again, but her green eyes held a sheepish look. “I... borrowed it from one of the tables.”

“Quill told you not to touch his stuff,” Atticus chided. Secretly, he planed to indulge in the inevitable tantrum.

“He also told me to wash my hair in the toilet,” Paige said, and Atticus beat down the chuckle at how her nose scrunched in disgust as she did. “Is it hard to understand how I might want some space from a man who literally talks shit?”

“What were you doing up in the watch tower?” he asked, because if he didn’t use his mouth for another reason he would laugh, and craned his head towards the the tower because he didn’t want her to see she was amusing him. He wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t want to give her that, knowing she possessed the power to make him laugh. It felt too close to chummy.

“Watching,” Paige smirked as his gaze snapped back to her.

“Cute,” he said dryly, glad for the chance to school his features.

She grinned like she agreed, her chin tilting up. Never had the gesture been used other then when they were fighting, her little signal for him, telling him she was winning. But it wasn’t only for him anymore. She'd done it to Quill yesterday.

Atticus’ insides steeled. What did she want?

“I needed a place I could use the light without waking up the others.” She gestured to the lantern, still glowing on the table.

“Use the light for what?” Atticus pressed, still preparing himself for whatever fight was coming.

Her mood shifted instantly, bouncing off his own, reluctance and petty determination to win whatever battle she sensed coming brewing a potentially violent cocktail. Dropping her pack onto the table beside the lantern, she fished through it, pulling something out too quick for him to see. Tossing it at him, she refused to let go of his eyes.

He turned the fabric over in his hands. “My shirt?" It was still dirty, stained and scratchy. He put his hand through the bottom, feeling it. “You took my shirt.”

She didn't back down when he looked at her again. Needle between her thumb and forefinger, she carefully placed it back into a plastic tub which she slipped into the backpack. Pale lantern light hightened the blush, staining her cheeks in noticable blotchy patches. "I mended it.”

“Why?” he demanded, grip tightening on the shirt.

She didn’t miss it, eyebrow raising. “How about 'thank you, Paige.’ Or ‘You didn’t have to do that, Paige’.”

“Exactly,” he grunted, cutting her off before she could build up more steam. “So why did you?”

She looked ready to roll right on with her poor imitation of his voice. But she stopped, eyeing him the way she did when she was trying to figure him out. He fought the responding urge to make one of his low noises when he wasn’t happy. He could always feel himself building to them, yet the giveaway was as involuntary as blinking.

And then, before his eyes, her suspicion, defence, her readiness to go into battle, fell away in the swoop of her shrugging shoulders. “Because you needed it.”

He blinked. Any reply about how he didn’t owe her anything because she fixed his shirt, how it was about time she started doing something useful instead of wrecking his cars and getting caught by Scavengers, died on his tongue.

Rolling the fabric in his fingers again, searching for holes, his mind fumbled for something to say. Now she’d said it, he could see thin stitches criss-crossing over ghosts of the tears he’d gathered. He found the one he’d gained yesterday, across the front, an inch from the hem, and the matching gouge in his skin throbbed.

“Pai-”

He stopped, looking at Paige. No. Not at Paige, who’s accent only came out when she got excited or upset, and scrunched her nose at things that grossed her out. He looked at the girl he was going to hand off to that place in Louisiana. No name when he found her. No name now.

Not if he was going to put her memory beyond the door when he was done with her.

“A Princess who sits in her tower, sewing by lamp light into the hours of dawn.” He forced a chuckle, smirking at her. “Do I even have to try?”

Her face reddened even more. “You have a crappy way of saying thank you.”

“I didn’t.”

He counted the thirteen seconds it took for her to try and stare him down, before his indifference made her break eye contact with a huff. Showing how little he cared about the things she considered moral or right was the true way to anger her.

She gathered up her things, the lantern, and stormed off. Her stomping up the narrow ladder clattered and clanged in the cavernous room.

Dawn light filtered through the high windows before he stood and followed her path towards the stairs. He’ll have earned himself some cold glares, and she will absolutely make sure they won’t walk together on the way to the smugglers. With Quill likely wanting to talk, he’d need some space from her and the others. Adam would help him.

Quill leaned against the walkway railing, chewing on a piece of jerky, likely from the pack Atticus put away. “Your bitch is pissed.”

“Don’t call her that,” Atticus muttered sharply, shouldering his way past the hamsterish man.

He really needed that shower.

\- Survival Count: Seven


	17. Chapter Fourteen

When Atticus exited the shower, damp black curls messy from a vigorous towelling, already dressed in his grimy, sweat stained, now patched dark blue shirt and dust splattered black cargos, the others were all kitted out in new, cleanish clothes from Quill's too-small pile, fresh as the day they were born. He ignored the inkling of karmic retribution for the crap he'd given Paige over his mended shirt, tossing the thought out with his used towel onto Quill's bed.

Despite the clothes being too small for Quill, Paige looked like she was trying on an older sisters hand-me-downs. Swathed in a dark blue button down reaching all the way to her thighs with the sleeves twice rolled up over her elbows, and a pair of white jeans, the ensemble held together by a thick brown belt. If nothing else would fit, he'd have preferred her to hack away at some pants not so confined, but she'd soon realise how dumb she'd been when the Kansas sun started to cook her, or they had to hot foot it from some not so restricted Feral's. She tugged at the button down's collar, trying to cover the metal circle around her neck, making it look like she'd attempted to swallow a Frisbee whole.

Jasper's chosen khakis and grey bowling shirt with knocked over pins reading 'Split Happens' hung off his gangly frame like a poorly put together tent. Travis kept his heavy brown jacket but found himself a pair of pale brown cargos and a new green shirt. Adam gleefully swapped his hole filled Chuck Tailors for a sturdier pair of black boots previously distributed among the prison guards.

"Grab what you can carry," Quill grumbled, sitting up from packing supplies into a worn backpack to throw Atticus a smaller satchel.

Inside the extra pack was another water bottle, two pairs of socks, a sachet of dehydrated tomato sauce, potatoes and vegetarian sausage of which he knew Quill was allergic, and a travel rain poncho folded up into a square the size of his thumbnail. The others all had one, looking just as full. Quill who shrugged one shoulder at the suspiscious look Atticus shot him.

"That crap ain't worth nothin' to me, can't eat no soy for shit, and if it keeps you away for longer, even better."

"That's a double negative," Paige piped up, shoving as many of the food packs into her pack as she could fit.

"Shut it, girlie!"

Atticus grabbed a dark green Henley, a couple pairs of socks and a decent looking pair of boots from the pile, shoving the clothes on top of the supplies in his pack and tying the boots by their laces to the strap.

Quill fed them again before they left, more jerky and some past their best rice crackers that could double as hockey pucks. Atticus would give his little finger for something fresh, but knew asking Quill for some of his home grown fruits or veggies was pushing it.

The group waited outside the main entrance, basking in the early morning sun while it was still cool enough to enjoy. Warm light hung low through tree branches, like this cooler, pleasent heat was a secret it wasn't supposed to share. It passed the time while Quill did a final sweep of his prison. Atticus stared out into the woods they'd trekked through the day before, but out the corner of his eye he could see Paige pacing, her fingers drumming on her arm. Whatever was making her so impatient was starting to rub off on him, an antsy pressure building in his gut. Somehow, it became annoyed at her. His leg started to twitch.

"Would you relax?" he grated out after he could take no more.

Quill lumbered through the front double doors before she could unleash her nervous energy on him. "My security better not break into my house," he said as he turned to lock the doors. It was oddly domestic.

"Keep their bowls filled and the doors shut. Your pets will stay put," Atticus said irritably. "Now can we get moving?"

Quill plodded down the steps, glaring sullenly and shoving his keys into his pocket. "They get loose and get into my food supplies, I'll be bringing you hell."

"Sure." But Atticus really didn't care.

They put the prison to their backs. Atticus felt good to be going towards something, a direction with an endgame... Well, more like another stop on the way to his endgame. At least his nerves could ease a little after, once again, getting as far from the grey block of misery as he could. He could be an optimist like that, sometimes. What didn't cool his temper was having to trample back through the long grass. Somehow in the night they'd spent inside Quill's 'house' it un-flattened with a vengeance, thousands of individual strands of quicksand gripping their legs and thighs, trying to pull them under into grassy tombs while kamikaze crickets leaped at him in waves, midges and mosquito's providing the air support.

Quill cursed the entire time, dropping more shits then a manure salesman, hacking away at the stems with a sleek machete. Atticus missed his old blade. It'd been chipped and rusted when he'd broken it to give Paige a leg up, but it could have helped him now.

They stopped mid-afternoon. Usually Atticus made them eat on the go, but Quill insisted, anxious he might stumble and whatever he was chewing would go down the wrong pipe. It was times like this Atticus wondered how a man who wouldn't sleep on his back for fear he'd choke on his tongue had become a criminal. Wasting a half hour before they got back on the move only spured him further. Atticus kept to the back of the group. He liked the semi-quiet, and resigned himself to keeping an eye on them all by association. Paige liked proving how sneaky she could be, and he wouldn't be taking his eyes off her again like he did in the car. He also knew if he went up front he'd set the pace and leave them all behind without realising it, legs thrumming with the frustration to move faster.

But Quill, ever so good at picking up on signals, decided to join him at the back, red faced, huffing noisily under the metal plates and bullet proof coverings.

"You'd move easier without the riot gear," Atticus said after twenty minutes of having to listen to him.

"Fat chance," Quill grunted, machete swishing. By now the sun was high, and Quill was sweating enough to fill buckets.

He puffed on for a few more paces, but Atticus could feel his small eyes flickering to him every few seconds. "What?"

Unabashed at being caught, Quill looked at him, blurting in his deliberate way, "Just wondering what this is all about?"

Atticus forced his eyes to remain forwards, staring at the underbrush ahead. "Acting like you don't know insults both of us"

Quill wouldn't be dismissed so easily. "I don't. What I know is you got a girl. I know you're heading south. I know that's where they're keeping your other g-"

Atticus' head snapped to him, eyes furious, but Quill only possessed enough humanity to bask in his triumphant needling. "Ah, I did know." His gleaming eyes narrowed. "You still haven't stopped."

"Of course I haven't fucking stopped!" Atticus snarled, barely keeping himself from biting Quill's head off. He checked the others couldn't hear them up ahead, then checked his rising anger, doing his best to blow it out on a sigh. "I swore on her, didn't I? Drop it."

"You think you got a way in this time?" Quill asked, decision made that he was not going to drop it.

Knowing he wouldn't stop until satisfied, Atticus nodded forwards. Paige walked gingerly through the grass, her golden hair swinging in a high ponytail. She was chatting with Travis, she always had so much to freaking chat about, unaware of the attention on her. "Maybe."

"What she got to do with it?" Quill asked.

For a moment Atticus considered spilling it all, Quill knew most of it anyway, then realised it would invite more questions than silence. "She's important to them. I can use her to bargain."

"How?"

"What difference does it make?" Atticus asked irritably. His patience hadn't been great to begin with, and Quill was really starting to step in it.

His sort of friends face soured. "It could mean the difference between you getting your head blown off, or sending them one of her fingers as a ransom."

"Aw, you almost sound like you care."

"Fuck you, I want my favour before you go on your little suicide quest," Quill muttered. Looks like he called the bluff from yesterday. He lifted his knife, eyebrows raised. "You hold her down, I swing, and we could head back to the house and wait it out."

Atticus glared at the sharp blade. "I'm not doing that."

Quill lowered the blade, swiping it at a nestle of thick grass not in his way. "Why not?" He must have seen Atticus glance at Paige then look away, reading his silence better than Atticus telling him to shut up. He wished he did. Snapping at Quill would have made him feel better. "Is that it? You like her?"

"It's not only you she hits with weapons of opportunity," Atticus deflected. "She's a pain in my ass, but I don't make it a habit going around chopping off girls fingers. That doesn't mean I like her."

"But she's got you feeling shit." Quill smacked the side of his head with his free hand when he rolled his eyes. "The only emotion that's a disease is compassion. Don't let her infect you, filling your head with what? Sentiment?"

"Hit me again, I chop your finger off. Cut that shit out," Atticus growled at him.

"Then listen to what I'm saying," Quill said in a serious voice, which was hard to distinguish from his usual short manner. "That little voice telling you she's a person with feelings and that hurting people is wrong is going to be your downfall. It's gonna eat away at you like maggots. If you want to finish this, you have to be willing to do what it takes."

"That doesn't have to be done." Atticus eyed Quill's blade.

"You'd better hope it doesn't. Or you'd better not pussy out when it does."

Atticus didn't talk to Quill again. If he was asked questions he didn't answer them. He barely heard them at all. Quill awakened the quiet, a talent he loved to flaunt. Maybe because he never learned how to shut his mouth, or because he had no respect for what no histories meant. He never did – it'd taken everything telling Quill his history in prison to stop him from asking.

Either way, that Atticus was gone. Somewhere else now.

"Atticus."

Adam's voice startled him from the open door. A void of memories swelled, seeing their oppertunity vanishing, trying to suck him in. He slammed the door, blinking back into the real world, the bang breaking up the quiet trying to push through. For the first time he registered the ache in his feet, the chilled sweat on his neck. Dusk had approached without his noticing. The ground was hard underfoot where it had once been soft. Silhouette sentinels of buildings towered in the distance, taller than any he'd seen after years of keeping his distance from cities. Military presence was too strong, be it a QZ or not, patrols always eeking out whatever could be left. The last time he'd been near one was Detroit, two years ago. Another memory he kept locked behind the door.

Adam came closer, the city at his back. "Quill say's we're nearly there."

Atticus cleared his throat and nodded until Adam moved on, not trusting his voice after coming too close to the edge.

They moved into single file, following Quill's wide steps down a narrow path. Hard packed earth became a sidewalk underfoot. Spears of grass, bushels of weeds, forced their way through cracks, moss crawling in from the ground and coating the street. Earth, slowly reclaiming Kansas City back into her green embrace one stem at a time. She could wait, she'd been waiting for a long, long time. Atticus took from her patience now as Quill led them slowly through the outskirts of the city. He knew he should appreciate the caution. It was doubtful Goamers would be patrolling this far from the centre of the city, but one bad corner could be the end of him. They'd have to plug him full of holes before they stopped him, and he'd make damn sure to take some of them with him when they did.

Quill stopped in front of a rundown house, over half its rootop russet slates missing in a patchwork of red and grey. One hung so precariously Atticus made a mental bet with himself he'd hear it shatter before they left. A pane in the front window, directly right of the door, was smashed in, an empty square in the set of four. The evening breeze ruffled a greying curtain Atticus guessed was once white.

Carefully, like he was reaching for a booby-trapped treasure, Quill pawed through the shattered window pane and pulled the curtain back. An etching of a crude sack dumped upside down was scratched into the wood, its indistinguishable contents spilling out onto the floor. If Atticus squinted, it looked like stick figures.

"This is the place." Quill knocked on the door twice, paused, stomped his foot, then knocked once more. Atticus needed to update his signals. They were getting ahead of him in showmanship, but if he rocked up to a door and announced himself with an outdated code he'd get a bullet between the eyes before a hanshake.

A little girls round face with big brown eyes appeared in the window. Paige bent down, smiling at her and waving. The girl was yanked back out of sight before she could smile and wave back.

When no one answered straight away, Quill repeated the knock. "We saw the kid. Open up, Mattis."

The door creaked open slowly, bit by bit exposing an entrance entirely taken up by a huge man. Thick brown hair greyed at his temples, silver flecks beginning to show in a closely trimmed goatee. Wrinkles furrowed cavernous lines at his eyes, burrowing deeper around his mouth when, giving the group Quill had waiting behind him a cursory glance, he frowned.

"Brought you some business," Quill said in way of greeting.

Matits grunted, eyeing Travis especially. "You expect that one to fit in one of my cars?"

"They'll pay extra."

Atticus had something to say about that, there was nothing to pay with. Mattis sighed and stepped aside, holding the door open with an arm burried under coarse curly hair, allowing them inside.

They shuffled in one by one, Travis bringing up the rear as he awkwardly bent under the doorframe. Cooper trotted in beside him, nose up and sniffing. When he spotted the family of three, two parents who stiffened at the sight of the dog, and the little girl from the window who's large eyes got even larger, all sitting on some pretty beat up sofa's, his tail began to wag. But Travis held him back, whispering to keep quiet. No hello's today.

Paige was watching the little girl watching Cooper. "He's friendly. Cooper, can you sit, please?" She stroked Cooper's head for proof, speaking to the dog like he was a person. Cooper sat, nuzzling her hand.

Slowly, looking back at her watching parents, the girl slid off the couch and toddled over. Stopping a few feet away, she froze as Cooper approached her, sniffing the splashes of dust on the tattered blue dress. When he pressed his muzzle into her tiny tummy, the girl squealed and wrapped her arms around his head.

"Sabina," her father hushed, glancing at the windows. The girl gave Cooper one last pat before returning to her parents. She peeked at Paige, smiling, a gap in her mouth where a tooth once hung.

Atticus couldn't keep himself from watching the whole thing, memories from the quiet threatening to surface. He forced them down, focusing on what Quill and Mattis were saying to help the door in his mind swing shut. Any noise, even Quill's flustered attempt at haggling, was good noise.

"I already got a full car. You want me pushing two more?" Mattis was saying, wrinkles fixed into a scowl simialr to that which welcomed them inside the house. He looked at Travis again. "Big boy there might need his own car."

"It's not my fault they brought Andre the fucking Giant with them."

Behind Quill, Travis and Jasper swapped a confused look and a shrug. Before their time, Atticus supposed, suddenly feeling much older than his twenty three years.

Mattis shook his head. "You're asking the Goamers to pull us over."

"Then don't go in a train," Quill argued, though sounded more like he thought Mattis a child. "Or can you only go one way without getting lost?"

Mattis didn't rise to the bait. "More people means more stink, and them ones you brought got cuts. If the Goamers don't see us, Feral's will smell 'em."

"Because car exhaust smells like roses." Quill rolled his eyes. "This is good business for you guys."

"That family got here first, and they've paid. Ditch some of yours and maybe I can work with it."

"No," Paige stepped into the discussion, abandoning a moment to think. "We go together or not at all."

Quill put a meaty hand on her shoulder and pushed her back. "Ignore her."

Mattis didn't, staring Quill down until he got the message and stepped aside. Two bushy eyebrows came together, Paige at their centre . "You know how risky three cars are?"

"Probably pretty risky," Paige said, her shrug so nonchalant it was theatrical. "But not as risky as us getting caught by Guard lookouts as we trail your route, and we'd say anything not to go down like that."

Mattis's scowl darkened at the thin implication.

Atticus rolled his eyes, stepping into the middle of the worlds most opposed shakedown. He put a firm hand on Paige's shoulder. "She's not used to paying for her own stuff." When Paige opened her mouth, Atticus pinched her skin until she closed it again. "But she understands services aren't given without insurance."

Matitis' glare didn't soften, but he nodded.

Atticus took it as a sign to move on. "How many run this network?"

"Twelve."

"So six. Doubles?" Atticus phrased like a guess, knowing the answer already.

"Triples," Mattis growled correctively. "Four triangles."

"You deal in the structure," Atticus cut directly to the end, to Mattis' begrudging surprise.

"Yeah, but none of them will run people."

Atticus's jaw tightened but he couldn't fault them. Running people was the most dangerous. The bigger the product the more it needed to be hidden. The fact Mattis' crew used cars surprised him. Tunnels, off the beaten above ground path, was usually the preferred method. He sighed and let Paige's shoulder go, turning to leave.

"I was bluffing," she blurted instead of moving away. Of course she could never let having the last word go. "You're helping that family, aren't you?"

"They're paying," Mattis said gruffly in leu of answer.

"But you are helping them. They'd be stuck outside, denied the safety of the walls, if not for you," Paige insisted, making her green eyes go big in that girl-superpower they all had as she looked pleadingly at Mattis.

The huge man scratched his neck. "Kid, they came to us. We don't go around looking for-"

"They came because they knew who could give them a chance." Paige wouldn't let go of Mattis' eyes. When he scratched his neck again she tracked the movement until his big hand stopped fidgeting, his eyes returning to hers. Earnestness flooded from Paige, transfixing Mattis on the spot. Pushing him away failed her, so now she drew him in. No reservations, no veil or subtext infused threats. No shield between them. In this moment, only he could save her. "We need a chance too. When Quill told us about you, I thought... we finally had one."

Mattis opened his bushy mouth, hesitated.

Atticus couldn't believe what he was seeing, and when the large man sighed in defeat, his jaw almost dropped.

"My boys gotta agree to splitting into two's. I won't force them into danger."

"Of course," Paige said, beaming, and held out her hand. Mattis almost smiled, or as close to his scowl going away, as he shook it, then moved off into the house in search of his men.

"They're going to want a big payment," Quill said quietly. He was watching Paige, a new distrust in his eyes. Ever since she'd hit him with the two-by-four, he'd snapped and kept her back like she was an old machine about to blow up. To his eyes the exchange must have looked an explosion in the making, only for a little kick to get the engine purring again.

Atticus almost enjoyed watching him try to make sense of what he'd seen. "What did you bring?"

"Me?" Quill's teeth gleamed nastily through his dark beard. "I ain't the one needing to go."

"What? How are we supposed to pay..." The second pack became a lot heavier on his shoulder as the truth struck home. "You slimy sack of shit."

Quill shrugged, still smirking. "That crap ain't worth nothing to me."

"That's a double negative," Paige practically snarled.

Quill sneered triumphantly at her. "Shut it, girlie."

World back on its axis, Paige made no effort to cover her despise for Quill as she slipped her bag off her shoulder, kneeling down beside Atticus. The others copied her without prompt or hesitation.

Travis gave up a pair of brown gloves and some jeans. Jasper, heartbroken, pulled out a bundle of white socks and two pairs of underwear, putting them into the budding payment stack. But when Adam began to unlace the boots he'd taken from Quill's, Atticus stopped him, placing the pair he'd taken for himself into the pile instead. He thought about giving up the hoodie and hat, then decided against it and tossed an old grey shirt and his belt onto the pile instead. Paige pulled out her extra water bottle and one of the dried food packets.

"Not that," Atticus said under his breath, reaching for the supplies.

"Mattis said boys," she reminded him, pulling the food and water back from his hand. "Somehow I doubt my clothes are going to be worth anything unless any of them are in need of a bra."

He wanted to argue, but she was right. She was getting annoyingly good at being right, so he let her toss the food and water onto the pile. She hesitated over a second food packet, so Adam threw a pair of socks onto the pile.

Together or not at all.

Unflinchingly declared, her oath rang in Atticus's head as Jasper fished one of the small tins of fruit out of his pack and offered it in place of her food as well. Travis didn't offer any food or water, he had Cooper to look after, and after depositing the bag stuffed to bursting with provisions next to him, began peeling off his thick leather jacket.

"Screw that." Jasper tossed his grey 'Mother of Dragons' shirt into the pile. Travis smiled at him, twisting, unthreading a belt from his waist and dropping it onto the pile instead. Paige squeezed Jasper's arm. He shrugged, smiling at the gesture without looking up from his pack as he searched for more trade.

"We nearly got blown up for that shirt," Adam whispered. Paige hid her giggle in her arm.

The sounds of rummaging continued. Atticus hoped there was enough, he didn't have much to trade to begin with. The boots were his best bet, everything else was either junk, or food and water. He considered swapping out his ratty blue shirt, then decided Mattis wouldn't appreciate Paige's amateur stitching.

"You were right," Paige murmured to him, and he wondered if she'd somehow guessed what he was thinking.

"I usually am," he grunted.

She gave him a flat look. "Contrary to what you think, I'm not stupid... But threatening Mattis was dumb. I shouldn't have done it."

Atticus wasn't sure what to do with Paige telling him he was right. "I wouldn't worry. It was barely a threat. And I told you, you're not used to it."

"I believe you called me spoiled," she said, without any heat. "You spoke his language."

"English?" He knew what she really meant.

Paige began talking through her train of thought. "You spoke his language. Doubles. Triangles. The crews they run in. Like a smuggler."

"And you know how the smugglers talk?" He couldn't find it in him to argue. "I ran with a small group-"

"Crew," Paige pointed out, pleased with herself.

The corner of his mouth flickered before he could stop himself. "Yeah, crew. It was a few years ago, in Detroit. I knew the city, its streets and alleys, the quickest routes, so they took me in and made me a runner. Uh, someone who moved their stock."

"I got that."

"I only moved small stuff, rations, medicine, that kind of thing."

Paige considered her next question, chewing on her lip. He waited, and only as she opened her mouth did he realise the danger of her thinking it, thinking him, over. "You know Detroit?"

He shrugged the blunder off. "Yeah," he mumbled, hoping she'd drop it. This was getting too close to sharing. He knew she was from Louisiana. The second she opened her mouth it wasn't hard to tell. But he'd been a dick because she'd fixed his shirt without wanting something from him; he wasn't about to spill his life story to her.

She nodded, more to herself, and he could see she was gearing up for another question, letting them spill out like a floodgate opening. This was why he didn't share.

"Did you join the smugglers after you escaped prison?"

He'd never used the word escape, but he supposed it wasn't an unfair guess to make.

Mattis came back in before he had to answer.

"This enough?" Atticus asked, gesturing to the pile of clothes and food.

Mattis looked it over, taking in each item, eyes lingering on Atticus's boots. He knew they'd been a good thing to offer. He also knew they would have been good boots.

"Not enough."

"What?" Jasper whined.

"You got all our stuff, man," Travis groaned.

Mattis acknowledged their complaints with a terse glance, adressing Atticus plainly. "Three cars is a lot to move."

They'd given all they could before it became a painful reality of living out the week without one of them starving for the day. Maybe he could convince Travis to part with the jacket. He briefly wondered if they could trade the dog. Paige's hand drifted to grip the dog tags around her neck, as she usually did when she was thinking. It usually meant he was winning an argument, or she was about to sucker punch him.

Mattis noticed and caught sight of the tags. "Those could work. One of my guys posing as a guard could help with moving shipments," he said, thinking out loud.

Paige stilled, hand hovering over the tags.

"No deal." Atticus didn't know why she wore the tags, but he knew they were important to her. He owed her that. She'd saved something he couldn't part with.

Mattis shrugged. "Then no ride."

"Wait," Paige said. For a moment Atticus thought she was actually going to give up the tags. Instead she crouched by her pack, not the ratty one Quill had given her, and pulled out the plastic, rechargeable lantern she'd used that morning.

"Hey!" Quill snapped. "She can't trade that! It's mine!"

He went to snatch it back, but Atticus grabbed him by the arm. Without letting go, he turned to Mattis. "Using fake tags could be risky if you get caught."

The lantern was already in Mattis' hand, and the man seemed pleased, his wrinkles turning up for the first time. "This will work." He tossed it onto the pile. "Cars are out back. Each trunk can hold three max."

Atticus was surprised they could hold that many. The beat up rust buckets looked one ding against the sidewalk from falling apart. One was missing its licence plate, though he supposed that didn't matter anymore. Once upon a time the station wagon might have been blue, based on the flecks of colour between dents and rust coating the car, and the medium hatchback might have been red. Don't ask him what the makes were, he couldn't tell from looking at them.

Six guys hovered by the cars, passing a cigarette around a circle that tightened when their new customers came outside. Apparently Mattis found some volunteers.

Mattis gestured for them to break. He put a hand on a young mans shoulder and steered him to open up the trunk of the hatchback. It was completely empty but wouldn't even fit Cooper, let alone a full grown man. The young smuggler reached in, running his hands along the seam of the floor, pushing. A click, then the floor slid inwards, gliding under rattling, loosely bolted seats, revealing a yawning cavern beneath.

They'd be hiding under the floor, Atticus realised, cold sweat breaking out across his back, fingers clenching unconsciously. Beside him, Adam's face went a waxy pale as he stared at the tight space.

The family climbed into the hatchback, at Mattis' insistence. They'd paid first so they'd be in the car with the best chance of getting in. Atticus didn't really care about what was fair, but Paige agreed with Mattis so he didn't bother arguing.

Before disappearing into the space under the floor with her parents, Sabina waved to Paige. Paige waved back.

Cooper hopped into the trunk of the middle car. Jasper followed, sliding his lanky frame under the hatch and along the body of the car. Adam stared into the black void like he would rather walk through fire than get in. One hand gripped the car's rear edge, knuckles white.

Comfort wasn't Atticus' strong suit. "You gonna be alright?"

"Tight space.." Adam murmured hoarsely.

"Only for a little while." The words came out gruffer than he meant them. His hard edges were too rough, his best attempts at softening them likely to do more harm than good. He couldn't help, but... "She won't go unless we all do."

Miraculously, Adam seemed to take comfort from those words. His grip on the car loosened. He managed a quick glance at Atticus, features held together in a frail expression of determination, before nodding erratically, trying to shake the fear off, took a few deep breaths in then, eyes screwed up tight, slipped in feet first so he could feel the air until the hood slammed shut.

No air wasted on a thank you. Atticus wouldn't know what to do with it.

Paige moved to the third car. Travis looked between the already packed second car and the space beside Paige, then moved to join her. Atticus stopped him with a hand on his wide chest.

"Nu-uh, Corncob. Go join the others."

Travis shook his big blond head. "There ain't no room."

"Suck it in and make some."

Travis looked down on Atticus, his frame broader, his flat spade of a face unhappy. Mouth ready to say more, instead a whining bark from the other trunk gave him pause. Grudgingly he moved off to the middle car without a word, squeezing into the trunk beside Jasper, throwing his arm over his dog. Mattis came and pulled the floor back over the sardine canned boys and dog, their feet, paws, and Adam's distressed face disappearing under the black lining.

"You know he was right," Paige commented, perched on the lip of the trunk.

Atticus leaned against the car beside her. "What I know is if we get stopped and Goamer's see my face, I'm screwed. Hopefully seeing it next to Roja's Princess will keep their fingers off the trigger." He smirked at her from a side glance. "Plus, you'll do something stupid if I don't stop you."

"My hero." She slid from the lip and into the car, head first.

Before Atticus could copy her, a meaty hand slapped the roof of the car by his head. Quill stood beside him, face a thunderous red, clearly not over having his lantern stolen. "You good here?"

It was a surprisingly civil question. Nicer than Atticus was expecting. "Yeah, I think so."

"Good, now get your ass moving south, and keep the fuck away from my house."

Atticus fought off his smile, knowing it would piss Quill off. Realising that almost made him do it. "Home sweet home."

"I'll write that on the welcome mat. Now get." Quill turned without another word and stomped off, back into the house, maybe hoping to haggle his lantern back from Mattis. Atticus watched him go until he slammed the peeling front door behind him.

He turned his back on his friend, getting into the trunk, manoeuvring his body into the tight spot. He and Paige's arms pressed together as they shuffled along on their stomachs. He barely had the room to roll onto his back when he reached as far as he could go. The tight confines of the car made Paige look even smaller, the tips of her toes level with his shins as she shuffled further into the car.

Mattis appeared in the slip between trunk and hood, but Atticus could only see his stomach. He'd changed into a shirt Travis traded, and Atticus bet he was wearing his boots. "All set?"

Before either of them could reply, Mattis reached over and pulled the floor back into place, sealing them in total darkness with the heavy thwack of the trunk.

Somewhere outside, the sound of shattering slate was deafened by the engines roaring to life.

\- Survivor Count: Six


	18. Chapter Fifteen

It got hot quickly. Paige hadn't considered the car's engine when she crawled inside, or how tightly packed she was in the metal belly of the carriage. To top it off, she was really regretting the stiff jeans she'd plucked from Quill's stash of clothes. The scratchy fabric was sticking to every ounce of sweat oozing from her legs. Engine hum surrounded them as the car skulked, laying low and quiet. Through where in the city she couldn't have said, rolling slowly over potted roads, each pebble, each crack, jolting the undercarriage of the car.

If Atticus could smell the sweat running down her back he didn't say anything, which was somehow worse than his usual taunting. Words she could counter, but his mind was a steel trap. Every second unsaid thoughts reamined caged they learned, expanded, and grew restless. She hoped the stench of engine oil covered the pongy reek of the pool currently gathering underneath her. She couldn't smell anything off Atticus other than his heady, outside on a sunny day, scent, so felt comforted she smelt like she usually did. Leading her to wonder what her usual smell was. Leading to a spike of dread she could be one of those people who somehow didn't know they stank like used gym socks made from decaying rat fur.

She tried to shake the thoughts out of her head. However, in their cramped dark confines, she ended up bonking it against a raised bit of plastic that covered the wheel. She couldn't manoeuvre her hand to rub the sore spot on the back of her head, praying Atticus hadn't hear the hollow thwack.

"Find the wheel?" His voice, smug and so close, was a reverberation she felt down in her chest, the thumping base you felt in your gut at a rave.

"I was looking for it, actually," she said, matching his smugness. "Found it on the first try."

He huffed. "Sure. Try not to knock it loose."

"I think only Travis has a head that hard."

He huffed again.

She preferred his voice to the monotonous rumble of the car. "How long have we been in here?"

She felt him try to shrug, his arm knocking against hers. "Couple hours?"

"How far do you think we've gone?"

"We stopped for a while. Might be past the wall."

"Helpful," she muttered.

He grunted, shifting, trying to get more comfortable on his back. She'd opted to lie on her front, though she wished she'd done it facing the rear wheels. Head on towards the engine, she felt akin to being swallowed by a smoking, sweltering beast, the lines of its throat constricting around her head with each choking gulp. She had to focus on her breathing when it became too much. Picturing herself in the backyard of her old home helped, under the tree she and Ella had tried to make a tire-swing from when she was ten. She'd sprained her wrist falling from a low branch when she'd tried to follow Ella into the high leafy top, and the memory of her mom and dad arguing over whether she needed to go to hospital, Ella constructing a splint out of colouring pencils and rubber bands under their back and forth, made her smile into the heat.

"So... how did this work for you?"

"What?"

The car bumped, a split in the road throwing Paige upwards. She landed with an ooff, half on top of Atticus's shoulder. "I meant," she huffed, struggling back into her space, "that you used to run with Smugglers." He made another noise, one she took for a reluctant yes. "How did it work? How did you not get caught? What did you do if you did?"

She stopped when she realised he was using her steamrolling over any chance for him to answer her questions as an excuse to not even try, and when he didn't add anything to her pause, she came to then conclusion giving Atticus an option to do the opposite of what she wanted rarely worked in her favour. It was a stark realisation, coming embarrassingly late. He was so difficult to communicate with, by choice, she'd need to strategise if she wanted a conversation. "Tell me about it."

Apparently not asking worked, because he grunted again pre-emptively. "We made routes. Watchers, guys who's job it was to keep track of our routes, would watch the Guard on the rooftops. They'd live up there for weeks, tracking every movement, every patrol schedule, how many made each round. They mapped every road they took through the city, then created ways around them."

She would have thought the short concise description it, he'd been a runner agter all, until he gave a short, amused huff, a softness brushing her neck indicating he was shaking his head.

"Those guys could do a full weeks report without ever coming down. Not even for supplies. A whole world up there. I bet those officials in the City Centre never knew. Can you imagine, Princess, living up there without ever having to-"

"I can." There was probably some chatter about the rootop communities. No one up there seemed to make the effort to hide, more simply coming down wasn't necessary. It wouldn't be a surprise if the Quarantine Zone authorities knew something about it, some members of the Guard who knew where to restock cheaply. She wouldn't have believed it, not without seeing it for herself. 

Paige considered all he'd said, remembering her time in D.C. "Protocol dictates the Guard change any route patterns periodically, specifically to discourage Smugglers and people trying to break into the Quarantine Zones without clearance."

Those people usually being the Patriot's. And others, like Sabina and her family in the car ahead of them.

"Clearance." Atticus spat the word. "Because only the right people deserve to be safe. The one's Roja chooses."

"He doesn't pick them himself," Paige said, defending her President like she always had to. People like Atticus never understood what Roja had to do to keep the country alive. God knows what happened outside of their little antiestablishment worlds. "The residents are allocated by the city they were in or closest too after the outbreak."

She happened to be in D.C., and hadn't been allowed to leave until she made them send her away. Whatever QZ her parents were sent to, or if they made it to one, she didn't know. After all this time without even a word of contact, she didn't like to think about it.

"And when a QZ falls? What about those people?" Atticus questioned, redundant because he knew, argumentative because he was. His favourite cocktail, the make up of his being.

Civilians went where there was room, usually larger cities with a few extra meals and some beds to spare. If there wasn't a lot of room... Specific people were sent out to the QZ's first, or chosen, for those who thought like Atticus. Soldiers and Guards stationed to protect the Quarantine Zones escorted the Boarding School Students. But people like Atticus would say it was all a ruse to get the protectors to leave their duty, and those not worth saving behind.

"You're changing the subject," she grumbled, looking away from him despite not being able to see his face. She'd started this to pass the time, not to be forced to think about those not as lucky as her. She couldn't choose any more than he could, and it wasn't fair he got to blame her because of it.

She was careful to leave her next words on a leading edge, "The rotation changes must have been hard to keep up with."

If he noticed how uncomfortable he'd made her, he had the decency not to keep prodding at the wound. He let out a long breath, one she wasn't stupid enough to believe meant he felt bad about reminding her, again, of all she couldn't do to help. Her help would come if, no, when, she made it to Louisiana.

Another jolt rattled the car. A depressed air, melancholy dust kicked up by Atticus stomping his feet over how unfair life was, like she didn't already know, was thick between them.

"We made our own rotations."

It wasn't much, but she was used to getting little from him. If anything this was a victory. "One's matching the Guard's."

"We had our ways," he said, supposedly enigmatically, but with Atticus everything was enigmatic, so it sounded fairly normal. Heavier, slower, as he considered each word he gave her.

She'd never met anyone who felt they needed to be that careful, her theory being he had no idea it was that caution feeding her curiosity about him, about his why's and where's. The who's who did whatever it was that made him the way he is now. You notice the Skulker in the corner after all, not the one joining in with the world around them. She would have laughed at the irony if she didn't know it would make him more suspicious and withdrawn.

"Must have needed to be clever, your ways to get around I mean."

She purposefully left that one hanging, as close to a question as she dared. Sometimes she tried to study him when he spoke, the physical clenching of his jaw as he bit down on words, dark eyes challenging anyone to try and press him for more. But since she couldn't see his face right now she let herself lie back and listen to the pitch and flow of his voice when he spoke about the past, what excited him when he sped up, what he would rather not go into detail about as it deepened to a terse growl.

"Different tactics." He surprised her by elaborating. "We would do forty-eight hour rotations watching the Guard barracks in teams of two, eight hours on watch each. Or we'd try seeing if they were sent schedules we could intercept. We even tried to put a guy on the inside."

She'd have touched the tags on her chest if she could've moved unnoticed. "Which is why you knew Mattis' plan for my tags would have failed?"

She realised her mistake in asking him after the question passed her lips. If she gave him a window he'd lock it.

"I told you," he ground out, beyond her expectations. "we had better options."

"And they worked?" Paige took whatever he was giving her and planned to run with it.

"I'm here aren't I?" Atticus responded evasively, the snapped redirecting of her question a familiar reflex. "There wouldn't have been any trial for me, Princess. Roja would have read the report and ordered my head for breakfast."

"He's not a cannibal." But she got his point. And things had just started to go well.

A sharp swerve to the right rolled Atticus suddenly into the wall. She heard a hollow thunk. Atticus groaned, his hand squeezing through them to rub his face.

"Find the wheel?" She did her best to imitate his smugness. Above them voices mumbled unintelligibly, too fast to make out.

He growled as he banked hard with his shoulder, rolling his body to right himself onto his back again. "On the first try," he muttered, needing to mock her to regain some ground and missing the mark. "Roja's one of the few who doesn't have to resort to that. You know that."

Paige's stomach lurched, and it had nothing to do with the jolting car. "That's not true."

She felt his head turn her way, unable to make him out in the darkness. She could feel his breath though, washing unevenly over her face, and she realised he may not like the confines of the car either. "Have you ever been out there before this? Outside of your Quarantine Zone? Have you ever not had a change of clothes? Your own bed? A full belly from non-restricted rations?" He cut himself off with a snort. She felt him shaking his head. "You were in the city centre, of course you don't know what it's really like."

"I've lived outside the centre," Paige defended weakly. The fact he knew where she'd been holed up the last two years was hardly an upsetting revelation. Adam was on the convoy for whatever plan they'd cooked up to get to her. She'd have thought being the centre of a chaotic showdown in Kansas that'd almost ended in her murder, which in fact was an opportunistic coup, would unnerve her more.

Atticus decided what he wanted, then took it. As sure as a storm swept the land. He was inevitable.

"It was a fluke if we caught some clean rats in Detroit," Atticus carried on, lost in the high he seemed to get from the combination of putting her down and making it hurt. "We pretended it was chicken. Believe it if you want, or you can call me a liar again. We were the lucky ones."

She didn't want to believe it. She knew people were hungry, it wasn't a secret. Food was getting harder and harder to come by. The farms where QZ's got their supplies from were a closely guarded secret. Men and women employed there were put through a vigorous vetting. Rumours in D.C. said the closest shipping to them was a little ways outside the city, hidden somewhere up north in New York State. Rumours couldn't hold their own weight compared to what she'd heard about the farmers. Those born on the farms were said to treat the secrecy with religious like reverence, inheriting the severity from their parents along with the job of keeping livestock safe.

They had their own subfunction of Guard, but most of the stories played them out to be more like bug pickers, keeping the crops secure from infestation one handful of squished mandibles at a time.

A full harvest making it to a QZ was a huge victory considering the rapid evaporation of the countries clean livestock.

Citizens weren't vegetarian by choice. Paige herself could count the amount of times she'd gotten to eat real clean meat in the past six years on her fingers. She wouldn't dare say that to Atticus. It would earn her another Princess comment. Not like she could stop the Boarding School from what they served the students.

But Atticus didn't care about that. She'd gotten it and he hadn't. Neither of them had much say in it, and apparently not choosing to starve herself, refusing food she couldn't dictate the distribution of, made her a bad person. Better to let him stomp his feet until he tantrumed himself out then argue.

Choosing that moment to betray her, her stomach gave a low rumble. She hadn't eaten since Quill stopped them on the way to the city, and half her can of tuna had gone to Cooper. It wasn't fair all of Travis's meals had to be halved because Atticus refused to ration for the sixth member of their team. All their walking, coupled with only pickings of already paltry portions, had reduced Travis' once thick belly and broad chest, to a square packing together of his broad body into a too tight, pallid frame.

Atticus shuffled beside her, then his clammy elbow was under her nose. "Hungry? I hear there aren't any nerve endings in the elbow."

He'd regret poking at her, she resolved, leaning up and licking his muscled forearm childishly to gross him out. His skin was moist and unpalatably salty.

"Not gonna take a bite?" he scoffed, utterly unaffected by her spit on his dusky arm.

She found his arm and shoved it away. He didn't laugh, he never truly laughed, but she heard his amused huff.

"Don't be a dick."

Her pack where she still had the jerky packet Quill had reluctantly chucked at her was out of reach, but thinking about it helped a little. Her reward for suffering through Atticus and the road trip into hell.

The car stopped suddenly, jolting her forwards, hitting her head again, this time on the wall in front of her, before it carried jerkily onwards.

Paige grumbled as she shuffled back. "I can't wait to be out of this car. Do you think there are Feral's in the city?"

"On these routes? Definitely. These Smugglers are moving three cars, so they're going through places where they know Goamer's don't go, which means Feral's." He made a noise in his throat, darker than the agreeing grunt from before. "It's the Goamer's I'm more worried about."

The body of the car juddered, the wheels jumping onto a curbside. Paige gasped, rolling against her will into Atticus's stomach. His long arms shot out to steady them, slapping each side of the box, his breath rushing out of him when she barrelled into his side. She found his chest, struggling to push herself as far from him as she could get.

"What is your problem with the Mil-"

Something thumped against the rear wheels, throwing the back of the car out, front tires skidding helplessly against the asphalt. Muffled shouting rose from the front of the car. Wheels screeched under forced acceleration. The car turned sharply, throwing them around like the inside of a pinball machine.

Atticus tensed under her. "Something's wrong."

The blow was so sudden Paige didn't hear it until the car was rolling, suspending her in a moment of weightlessness. She screamed as steel crunched, hands once pushing away from Atticus clinging to him like life depended on it. His arms, one under her neck the other pressed to the side of the car, closed around her, bringing her to his chest, his body coiling around hers.

Machine and gear crunch roared around them, the driver desperate to regain control. The whole body of the car lurched as the wheels landed on asphalt and spun them forwards.

Atticus rolled them, onto her back, his body crowded over hers, arms under her head, forcing her to tuck her chin to her chest. "Don't move!" he roared, then the car pitched again, slamming him into the side where she knew the wheel cover jammed into his back. Her head bounced against his chest, cracked back against the floor. Her eyes felt like they were rattling inside her skull as she fisted the front of his shirt and hauled them back to the centre of the trunk.

Another swerve threw them upwards and sideways at the same time. Her neck, despite Atticus' hold on her, whipped back as her body lashed down. She didn't think to scream but the sound ripped from her again, blood spitting against Atticus's shirt as she released her bitten lip. She pressed her face to his chest to muffle future noises as the car whipped and jerked in directions she couldn't see or guess, the inside of a tumble dryer, a rollercoaster in the dark. Every swerve drew a whimper, every crush of steel and scream from the people above tightened Atticus hold on her.

Something crashed directly above them, and the car flipped. The roof crunched against stone, Atticus' back slammed against the upward casing. He lost his hold on Paige as she crashed in the opposite direction, and the world turned even blacker.

**Author's Note:**

> All comments and criticism welcome, so long as it’s constructive


End file.
